The London JM Homicide cases
by Nytro
Summary: From the blog of Dr. John H. Watson, the story of his very first case working with Sherlock. There's a serial killer loose in the city and the authorities need help fast. A string of maddening clues is being left at each scene. It's almost as if the murderer's... taunting them? T for corpses and a little bit of gore. Now complete.
1. An Introduction to my Blog

**Welcome. Thanks for clicking on the story.**

**This is my first story for the Sherlock fandom. It's partly pre-written, so expect some quick updates. A note to anyone reading this: do NOT look in the reviews section until you have read up to the last posted chapter. There will be plot twists and spoilers, although that's mostly nearer the end. Also, there are NO named OCs in this story who are alive. Obviously, the murder victims are original, but if a character happens to come in and play a big role in the story, they're part of the Sherlock cast. I'll say no more on that, but you should be able to guess from the context.**

**This is an AU, since obviously the first case was not this one. It's essentially a rewrite of the LABB Death Note story, so if you've read that then you probably know how it ends. Please don't spoil anything for anyone else. If you haven't read it, don't worry. It's better that way.**

**I don't own Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock. However, as a British BBC licence payer I do own BBC Sherlock, even if only a little bit. Socialism FTW!**

**So, without further ado...**

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**_From the blog of Dr. John H. Watson_**

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For his fourth victim, Jim Moriarty conducted an experiment. He wished to know whether or not it was possible for a human being to die from blood loss without the skin, or any other major organs, being ruptured. To test this hypothesis, he proceeded to tie his helpless, drugged and dazed victim up and beat their left arm - and only their left arm - with a metal pipe. Not once did he ever break either the skin or the bone, although the arm swelled up red and black from the intensity of the bruising and the surface of the skin became shiny, tight and swollen. After almost half an hour of this, he checked his victim's pulse to see if they were still living - they had passed out from the sheer agony of the torment long before this point. To his slight disappointment, their heartbeat was there - not as steady or strong as it had once been, but flickering regularly at the pulse point on their neck. Jim Moriarty simply gave a shrug, and pulled out a knife...

...Ack, this isn't going to work. I can't write like this, it creeps me out. I don't care if anyone reading this blog actually likes that gory stuff, because I really don't like writing it. I've been to crime scenes worse than that with Sherlock by my side, but actually getting inside the killer's mind as he's going through the process of murdering brings back bad memories for me. Sorry.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning, for those visitors new to my blog. I profoundly apologise for the gory introduction. My name is John Hamish Watson, and I am an amateur (the word doesn't have the right connotations, but that is what I am) consultant detective for Scotland Yard. I work alongside the fabled Sherlock Holmes, the man able to solve any case for anyone, who works not for money but simply to keep his genius mind occupied. I am also his flatmate, and this blog is an account of the cases we have solved together, for your reading pleasure.

Recently, I have had many, many requests to write about the first case Sherlock and I solved, and about the time that we first met. This post is a response to those requests. If anything, it may be a rather good place to journey into my blog, being as it is a beginning to our history together. Whatever it may be, I will endeavour to make it as readable as possible for those new here.

First, let me tell you about the case. The London JM Homicides (as they are known informally to members of the Yard today) a few years previous captured the interest of the media and you yourself may even have heard of them. Of course, that is not what they were known as at the time - back then they were the Voodoo Murders or the Straw Doll Serial Killings. Both names refer to the same trademark that was left at all four crime scenes - a number of straw voodoo dolls, nailed to the was that served as the trademark of the killer.

The resolution of the Voodoo Murders was shrouded in secrecy from the media, and the most that any public newspaper was able to extract from the investigators was that the perpetrator had been identified and arrested, and that no such similar killings had occurred again.

Now, however, I have been given explicit permission from Sherlock Holmes himself to write about the true story behind the killings. I hope you enjoy the read.

One thing: I will endeavour to write this in third person, to make it appear as much like a story as possible. This will probably feel a little weird to me, as I am the main character in the tale and I am not used to writing about myself in this way. I therefore apologise for any awkwardness with the points of view, and any comments I may insert which you feel are disrupting to the story. Bear in mind that my commentary is from my perspective several years later, and will probably point out to you a few details that the my younger self entirely missed at the time.

On that note, let the tale of the London JM Homicides begin. This is the story of how I first met the great Sherlock Holmes face-to-face - and I didn't even know who he was.


	2. Refuge in Audacity

John Hamish Watson woke up to the rather annoying beeping sound of his morning alarm at seven-thirty a.m., on the twelfth of September, 2008. He gave a quiet groan of irritation, muffled by the pillow, and reached out a hand to silence the offending noise. His hand, blindly stretching out (for he did not want to raise his head from the pillow), accidentally nudged the alarm clock off the bedside table and onto the ground, where it made a harsh crack as it contacted the wood-paneled floor only an inch or two from where the carpet began. It fell silent.

John rolled over to get a better look at what damage had been done, shoving the duvet away from his pyjama-clad form and reaching down to pick the clock back up. Its screen was blank. He frowned. Opening the back, he discovered that one of the batteries had been shaken loose by the fall. He clicked it back into its proper place and set the clock back on the nightstand. Five seconds later, numerals appeared back onto the screen. They were all zeroes. He would have to set it again.

John sighed and went downstairs to make tea. It was too early in the morning for this.

In the kitchen, he caught the faintest whiff of alcohol drifting from a source he could not pinpoint. However, he could easily guess the culprit. Harriet Watson, his sister, had had a drinking problem for a while now, and it showed little sign of going away anytime soon.

John himself walked with a limp and a tremor in his arms, constant reminders of his time in service to the army, fighting in Afghanistan. His cup of english breakfast tea trembled a little in his grasp, the water surface lapping like ripples up the side of the mug. He always compensated for this, however, and filled the cup with boiling water to a point lower than what was the norm, so the tea did not spill over the side. John was used to this life as a wounded soldier by now. He was also bored, bored out of his mind.

The first odd thing John Watson noticed upon re-entering his bedroom was that he had obviously left his laptop on overnight, because it was sitting there in the corner of the room showing his desktop background. He set down the tea next to the clock - which now showed that it was four minutes and thirty-six seconds past midnight - and went over to the computer. It would not do to waste energy in that way.

The second odd thing John Watson noticed was the fact that his email inbox button was highlighted at the side of the screen, meaning his email account was open and had been all night. He tried to think back to the previous evening, but nowhere did he ever remember checking his mail. He only usually did that in the mornings.

"Harry? Did you go in my room while I was making tea?" Silence greeted his query. Knowing Harry, she would have a really bad hangover at this time in the morning and wouldn't be in a fit state to even get out of bed, much less go sneaking into her brother's room while he was downstairs. Plus, his email was password-protected, and he was pretty sure she didn't know that 'Penguin34zOO' had any special meaning at all to him. It didn't - that was why he had chosen it. John could be a little paranoid sometimes; his therapist put it down to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Still confused, he clicked on the mail button to open his inbox.

He had five new messages. The first one was from a colleague and friend of his still serving abroad, enquiring about how he was adjusting to life back home. He dismissed the last three as spam offers, and made a mental note to update his filter settings to the latest version.

The second one was from an anonymous e-mail address, with no other notes to say who had sent it. It was titled 'Hello John Watson. I require your assistance. SH'.

Against his better judgement, John clicked on the email. It could have contained a virus, but he didn't think about that at the time. The email read as follows:

'Hello John Watson. I require your assistance on a case I am working to solve. If you accept the offer, please make sure you are out of earshot at eight-fifteen a.m. when I will phone you on the mobile you now possess, that once belonged to your sister. If you deny the offer, please destroy the mobile before that time to prevent the call from going through or being registered publicly. I look forward to your acceptance. We will discuss more at that time. SH.'

John took one look at the email, raised a metaphorical eyebrow, and then went back to the inbox to type out a reply to his friend in Afghanistan. He took his time, writing about the weather over here (rainy, as always) and joking about how his friend was probably more tanned than him now. He enquired as to the health of his other comrades (without requesting any specific details, of course) and how they were faring now that the guy who usually patched them up had needed to be patched up himself.

A few seconds after he hit the send button, the mobile phone on his bedside table began to ring. He looked over and saw that the time on the clock just next to it was forty-four minutes past midnight. It was eight-fifteen, then.

Intrigued, he picked up the phone and answered.

"Who is this?" A scrambled voice came over the line.

"Hello, John Watson. This is Sherlock Holmes. You have decided to accept the offer?"

"I don't know what the offer is." Strangely, John didn't feel scared, just tense.

"Have you heard of the Straw Doll Serial Killings?" John almost nodded, before remembering he was on the phone.

"Yes, I've heard. What about them?"

The Straw Doll Serial Killings were a group of three - so far - homicides that read like something out of a detective novel. The first victim, Jacob Merrivale, had been found nearly two weeks ago, having been slashed to death with a knife - or so it was said by the papers. The two next victims had been children, Jack Underwood and Jill Underwood. They were twins. They had been found dead in their parents' flat when they had come home from work one day, four days after the first murder. Their faces had been smashed in.

There was nothing in either of the crime scenes which would point to the identity of the murderer, and the differing instruments of death would suggest different perpetrators, if not for two things.

At both scenes, the door had been locked from the inside and all fingerprint evidence wiped from the room. Also, straw-stuffed voodoo dolls had been nailed to the walls at both of the crime scenes. Four at the first, three at the second. It had certainly meant for interesting journalism.

"They are interesting."

"Are you the killer?" John didn't know why, but he spoke that in a whisper. A static-like noise filled the line, and he didn't know if it was laughter distorted by the voice-changer or a coughing fit.

"No, I am not, although you would not be the first to suggest that. I am merely an interested party wishing to offer my services on this case."

"Why are you contacting me then?"

"Your military record shows you are a trustworthy person, John Watson. Also, I believe that by choosing someone to work with me who I have had no prior involvement with, I can keep others from influencing my decision."

"So you just picked me at random?" John didn't know what to say to that.

"Not quite at random. I scanned a large list of those I was unconnected to but would suit my purpose. Then I picked at random."

"Okay..." John was starting to wonder if this man was some type of tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. Oh well, it at least kept him from being bored this morning.

"Are you willing to cooperate with me?"

"Sure, why not? It's not like I had plans for this week." It was meant to be sarcastic, but maybe the tone didn't carry over the phone. Or maybe 'Sherlock Holmes' just dismissed it.

"Excellent. You will be paid for your efforts, but we can discuss terms later. For now, let us discuss the case.

"Seven days before the first murder, a crossword puzzle was sent in an unmarked envelope to Scotland Yard. They checked it for fingerprints, but it had been wiped clean. They tried to solve the puzzle, but were unable to figure out the answers to any of the clues."

"Right. And the relevance this has is?" Tinfoil-hat theorist was looking pretty likely right now.

"I'll get back to that shortly. For now, please focus on the difficulty of the crossword puzzle. Not even the brightest minds in Scotland Yard were able to even crack one of the cryptographic clues. It was an extremely difficult puzzle."

"Where is this leading to, again?"

"Recently, I acquired a copy from a friend in mine in the Yard."

"And?"

"I solved it." Okay, so all that talk about the difficulty was just complimenting his own abilities. What a narcissist. "The point I am trying to make is that the solution to the crossword puzzle was an address in East London. It was the location of the first murder."

That made some sense, at least. A little. Well, none at all.

"So, what you are trying to say is that the killer made clues to his first murder and posted them to Scotland Yard? Really?"

"Yes. That is why I believe he has also left clues at the two crime scenes, pointing to his next murder. Incredibly hard clues to decipher, I am certain of it, but they ought to be there. It will be your job to go to the crime scenes and take a look at them. Don't worry; I will do all the thinking for you. I simply need a shield so that I am not left vulnerable. You can be as idiotic as you want."

Okay, that was a little bit too condescending. John paused for a bit before responding.

"Uh, are you sure they will let me into the crime scenes? I don't have a police badge, and army rank doesn't mean much outside of the forces."

"Just tell them Sherlock Holmes sent you. You should have no problems. I will send you the address of the first crime scene in an email shortly - if I told you over the phone you would invariably forget it before you wrote it down. Feel free to cancel anything you have to do today and head over to the address to start your research. I am tracking your phone. I will call you when you arrive."

"One last thing. How come you need someone to go there for you?" Another bit of static on the line.

"A certain... relative of mine has decided I require additional protection for the time being. I am unable to go there myself. He has, however, agreed on me sending a proxy in to do the looking around for me. Goodbye, John Watson."

Click. The phone line went abruptly silent, and John was left rather confused as to what had just happened. Had he really just been contacted by a detective and ordered to investigate a serial killing? Just what sort of nutjob had the other guy on the line been, anyway?

The clock on the bedside table read one fourteen a.m. when John Watson got dressed, picked up the mug of tea from beside it - he had let it go cold, it would be no use drinking it now - and went downstairs again, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do in these kinds of situations.

He returned with a fresh cup of tea and sipped it slowly while checking the address that Sherlock Holmes (is that his real name? honestly?) had sent over the email. Two addresses, actually. The first was in East London, and that was where the loony had told him to start.

Hey, it'll be fun. John left the house before nine, before Harry had even woken up. He barely noticed it, but his hand had stopped trembling. Technically, he had no more right to carry a gun than an ordinary citizen did, as he was on honorable discharge from duty. Rules, however, can be bent a little. He kept the pistol in his jacket.

On September the twelfth, at just past eleven in the morning, John Watson stood outside 24 Bazely St., a little whitewashed house on a deserted street corner, and the location of the first murder. A single policeman stood outside, smoking a cigarette and generally looking bored. John went up to him and took a deep breath. Well, if there was a good time to make a fool of yourself, this was it. Nobody else was around.

"Excuse me? Sherlock Holmes said I could have access to the crime scene..." He held his breath and waited for an answer. The policeman took his time, inhaling a drag from the cigarette and blowing it out in a breath of white smoke, right near John's face. He tried not to breathe in.

"Yeh, arright. High-ups said you'd be 'ere. Go right on in, lad."

John walked through almost numbly, not actually having expected that would work. Apparently his mysterious private detective on the phone was the real deal. Nice.

Said phone decided to ring as soon as John had stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him. You know, if he didn't know better, he would swear Sherlock Holmes had been watching him on CCTV cameras. He made a note to himself to check if that was possible.

(I must interject that I asked Sherlock about this after the case, and he maintains that it was just his brilliant sense of timing. However, his brother Mycroft Holmes certainly possesses technology that would make it feasible, and I am still unsure whether Sherlock was lying to me.)

He answered the phone.

"Okay, Mr. Holmes..." the name sounded odd indeed, "I've reached the scene."

"Good." John briefly wondered where exactly Sherlock Holmes was calling him from. Where does a private detective go when he's solving cases over the phone? "Don't hesitate, John. The bedroom is upstairs, first on the left."

The first victim, twenty-two year old Jacob Merrivale, had been killed in his own bedroom. So had the other two, actually. It had been nearly a month since the murder - hence the very much diminished guard outside - but somebody was keeping the place clean. There was hardly a speck of dust to be found.

"Sherlock, not to state the obvious, but..."

"What is it?" the mechanical voice sounded the slightest bit irritated. Maybe it was the first name terms - John made a note he'd use that all the time now. He wasn't above a bit of petty revenge for being dragged across town on a Tuesday morning.

"Haven't the police examined the scene?"

"Yes." Silence, then-

"And you have the police report?"

"Yes." More silence. Not very helpful.

"Is there really any point in me even being here?"

"Yes." It was like talking to a robot.

"Well, what's the point?"

"I expect you, with my guidance, to be able to find something the police would not."

"That's... clear enough." And a little bit obvious. A sigh came through the phone, obviously put on.

"What I am asking you to do, John Watson, is to look around the scene and find something the police have missed. Quite frankly, their reports are worse than useless to me. Utterly inane and unable to draw conclusions, they clog the files with chunks of useless data that distract me from thinking properly."

"Right. Okay, got it. Go in, look around, tell you what I see." John opened the bedroom door, noting that it opened inward and had a thumb turn lock. A locked room mystery... just like out of some book.

It was not a massive room, but it was decorated sparsely enough that it did not really feel cramped. It had a large bed and a shelf with some books and games on it. The carpet was a grey-blue, the sort that would show stains but not dirt. A patch was stained a brownish-red in the middle of the room. John tried not to think why.

There wasn't much else there, really. Certainly no messages written in blood in the wall, or anything like that. Although...

There were four holes, one in each wall, where presumably the dolls had been nailed in. John made a note to investigate those later.

"So, John Watson, I would like to hear your thoughts on this killer. Based on what you have been told so far, what would you infer about him?"

"I'm not very good at these sorts of things, Sherlock..."

"It doesn't matter. I think you failing horribly might stimulate my own genius." How encouraging. John thought for a moment, sitting down on the perfectly made bed.

"Well, he's not normal, that's for sure. Obsessive, if you ask me."

"How would you tell that?"

"Fingerprints. Not a single fingerprint was found in any of the locked rooms. That's abnormal, right?"

"But surely, leaving no fingerprints is the most basic of criminal techniques." John gritted his teeth and tried not to think about the fact that he knew exactly what Sherlock was doing - testing him to make sure he was worthy to do this. He wracked his brain, trying to come up with a good answer.

"Not to this extent, though. If you didn't want to leave prints, most people would just wear gloves. This guy though, he wiped them all. Every single fingerprint in the room."

"Well, maybe it's possible that he visited often, and his fingerprints might be on other items than those he touched during the killing."

"Yeah, maybe. But he went through all the books on the shelf and wiped every single page! That's not caution, Sherlock, that's just obsession."

"I agree."

"..." Well, it's nice to know his input was appreciated. Even if it was obvious that Sherlock had thought of that ages ago. "Well, if he's taken precautions like that, we're not going to find any mistakes."

"We are not looking for mistakes, John. We are looking for a message that the killer had deliberately left behind."

Did that even happen? Normally, no... but then this murder was so odd, and already the killer had given them a few clues. The dolls on the wall being the most obvious, but...

Locked rooms. John didn't know much about them, but he'd read enough detective novels to know that they were almost always created when someone wanted to make a murder look like a suicide. However, in this case, the dolls and the way the victims had died - one covered in criss-cross cuts from a weapon not found at the scene, the other two hit in the face with a weapon which, again, was not found at the scene - meant there was no way it would ever be considered a suicide. Which meant that there was no point in making a locked room. Not a mistake, exactly, but pretty unnatural.

John Watson stood up from the bed, walked over to the door, and turned the lock to lock himself in. He wasn't sure why; it just felt right. Then, he went over to the hole in the wall opposite the door.

The dolls themselves had been taken away as vital evidence, but you couldn't move a hole. John poked it. It did nothing. Sighing, he went back over to the bed.

He took out six photographs, laying each one on top of the duvet in a balancing act so that none of them were at an awkward angle to see. One photo showed Jacob Merrivale's body, splayed out on the floor of this very bedroom, eyes open and staring blankly up at the camera. The other photo showed a close-up image of his chest. It had obviously been taken when the body was at the morgue.

Lots of thin, shallow slashes that looked to have been made with a knife gave a crisscross pattern to the body. While they certainly looked gory, John had seen wounds like them in his time, and in his opinion they would not on their own be able to kill a man, not unless the man sat there for hours and let himself bleed to death.

"Sherlock, were these wounds the cause of Jacob Merrivale's death? The papers said they were, but-"

"You are correct. The wounds were most likely inflicted after death. The police identified the real cause of death as overdose of a powerful anaesthetic, administered by a needle into a vein in the left wrist." Sherlock had clearly been thinking about this before, and John resigned himself to listener as the scrambled voice explained for him.

"Normally, when a killer engages in mindless violence like this against a victim, they have a personal grudge against their target. However, there is of course the anaesthetic, which may even have been done as a mercy kill - so quite the opposite. It is possible that the killer was having ethical problems with murder and sought a painless method, or simply wished to make it known that the cuts on the chest were not done as a cause of death."

"Well why would he do it then?"

"I... am unsure at the moment. There seems to be little pattern to the marks." Sherlock seemed to have a hard time saying that. John gave up and looked at the four other photos, each one of a straw doll nailed to the wall. He picked one up and squinted at it, comparing it to the next one in line.

"Are the dolls different sizes?"

"Yes." John waited for elaboration, but it didn't come.

"Sherlock, could you help me a little here? I'm stumped." The pictures didn't really show which doll was where. Walls all look the same.

"The largest doll was on the right side of the room, as you come in through the doorway. From there, the dolls decrease in size as you go anticlockwise around the room. The pattern is the same at the second murder site, except the doll above the door is missing."

"..." Okay, so nothing there. "Sherlock, are you absolutely sure that the killer is, in fact, trying to leave a message? Because I don't have the foggiest what it might be."

"I am nearly fully certain, John Watson. Remember the crossword. In any case, it is worth scouring the scenes for any more clues. The serial killer, whoever they may be, is quite clearly planning to kill again very soon." John frowned. With the killer still out there, it was always a possibility, but...

"How?" By this, he meant 'how do you know that?'. Sherlock picked up on it.

"The number of dolls. Four at the first scene, three at the second. They are decreasing by one each time. I merely extrapolated from an incomplete data set. I would say two more, separate, murders, possibly with an increasing number of victims each time. Then, our serial killer will stop."

"Why not just carry on? He's obviously enjoyed success with the crimes. Why not keep killing?"

"John Watson, I am astounded by the sheer stupidity you display sometimes. A pity. No matter, I will explain.

"The next murder will occur with two dolls at the scene - the one after that with one. However, after that, assuming he wishes to carry on with the pattern, he won't be able to leave a doll at the scene. Therefore, he wouldn't take credit for it."

"...Alright. I see. So, the number of dolls is going down and the number of victims is going up, right?" A soft 'ssssh' of static over the line, and John could tell Sherlock was sighing.

"Possibly. The doll sequence was easy to work out - can you think of any sequences that go four, three, and then don't go to two? Assuming relatively simple sequencing rules." John had to admit, he couldn't really. "With a sequence starting at one and then moving to two, it does not have to be addition. The number of victims could double each time, or we could have a set of fibonacci numbers. It is hard to tell."

"So, there will be four incidents total?"

"No, only two."

"What?"

"Oh, I will solve this case before another murder is committed."

The voice didn't even sound smug. It was just a statement of fact. Confidence? Overconfidence, more likely. Or hubris. Maybe both.

"Are you sure that the killer left clues at the crime scene? Why not just post more crosswords?"

"I have been in contact with Scotland Yard, and they have not received anything else that may have come from this killer. The second murder has already happened. Assuming that the killer wishes to give advance warning, then the clue must have been left here."

...Okay, so that made a little more sense.

"Hmmm... So..."

Something deliberate. A message much harder to understand than the dolls. Something like a very challenging crossword puzzle. John was starting to understand why his help might be needed. You couldn't work something like this out from a police report where those investigating didn't even know they were looking for anything. You had to see it with your own eyes... reach out and touch things... really observe...

It made John feel like he was probably being trusted with a little too much for just having met this guy by email this morning. It wasn't even noon yet!

"Is something wrong, John Watson?"

"No... never mind."

"Good. For the moment, let us cease communication. I have other things I must attend to. Goodbye, John Watson."

Click.

John brought the phone away from his head, flexing his fingers to work out the start of an ache that had begun to gather in them. He should invest in a headset.

There was nothing else in the room bar the bed, the carpet and the bookshelves, so he went over to the shelf to have a look at that first.

"Well... Mr. Merrivale is certainly an avid reader, I guess..." The bookshelves were jam-packed full of books. There was no room for any more, apart from on the top shelf where Jacob Merrivale obviously kept his games collection. "So, he has a games console? A handheld one..." From the looks of it, it was that Nintendo one. John looked for it, but it wasn't on the shelf - although there was a cradle for it attached to a wire that led down to a charging socket.

So, the device itself wasn't there. Could that tell him anything?

Yes, it could. It told him that, as an item of value, it had probably been removed by either relatives who visited the house or by the investigators of the scene. Dead end there. Although the games were still here, he supposed...

John walked away from the bookshelf to stand in the middle of the room. He tried not to think what the red-brown stain he was standing on actually was, and instead raised his gaze to the lightbulb socket. According to the file Sherlock had sent him, the killer had unscrewed this lightbulb, wiped the socket for fingerprints, and screwed it back in again. Just like he had wiped the book pages.

This suggested that not only was the killer incredibly finicky, but also that the police had actually bothered to check the inside of the lightbulb. And gone through all the books. He doubted there would be any obvious kind of message in there that hadn't already been found.

John went over to the bed, looking back down at the duvet that held the six photographs. Okay, the bed seemed an even less likely option. Although, maybe if he stripped the sheets and pulled off the mattress he might find something? He didn't even need to check the file to know that the police would already have done that.

He surveyed the room, looking for any other hiding spots. Under the carpet? Worth a try. Behind the wallpaper? It didn't look like it had been pulled off, so the police probably hadn't investigated it. Possible.

"Why would the killer hide a message?" John muttered to himself. "If he wants it to be found, it's no use hiding it. He wants the puzzles to be difficult to solve, not difficult to find... to prove that we're idiots."

He wasn't outwitting them - that would be leaving no message at all.

No, he was just mocking them. Maybe that was the whole purpose of the killings?

"Is he making fun of us?" Who was 'us', anyway? Scotland Yard? The police? The mysterious 'Sherlock Holmes'? The world?

"There must be something here..." And then it hit him.

What if there wasn't? Something that should be here, but isn't.

"Okay, that's feasible, I guess..." John didn't know when he had started to talk to himself, and decided not to dwell on the possible effects it might have on his sanity. "What's not here, that should be? The murder weapon? Or..."

Well, the body would be a good place to start. That wasn't here.

John Watson picked up the two photographs of Jacob Merrivale's body and looked at them carefully. If the killer had left a message, then it was obviously to do with the knife wounds. Like Sherlock had said, normally these would indicate a personal vendetta, but now that he gave it more thought, they were definitely unnatural.

The body had been found lying on the carpet, wearing trousers and a t-shirt. Both were soaked in blood, but the t-shirt had not been damaged at all. That meant the killer had removed the t-shirt, made the marks, and then put the t-shirt back on. He'd put everything else back where it was supposed to be.

Except for the knife marks... was there a reason he didn't want to damage the t-shirt? He didn't seem to mind if it got bloodstains, and the shirt definitely belonged to the victim. He slept in it.

"The marks... they're like... crosses? Most of them are crosses, but that could just be random, I guess. Some of the crosses overlap... making..."

Hashtags. That was the only thing John's mind could come up with. And that made even less sense than the crosses. He was spending way too much time on the computer.

This stuff only really worked if you were looking for it. Symbols weren't like letters, easily readable. If you weren't going to limit yourself to an alphabet, then there were hundreds of thousands to choose from. The crosses could be any one of a near-infinite number of symbols, and he wouldn't have a clue which one it was. That is, if they were symbols at all.

"Well, I guess I should probably check all the other rooms. Maybe he left a message in one of them." John knew it was unlikely. The killer had only wiped fingerprints from this room, so any message would be left here. Nevertheless, he turned to leave the room.

...And then turned back. There was one place he hadn't looked yet. Under the bed. Pretty easy to overlook, and more likely than under the carpet or wallpaper. It was an abnormally large bed for such a small room. It would be a good place to hide a message.

Of course, it was highly unlikely that the police had missed such a totally obvious blind spot, but it was worth crawling under there just in case. Plus, maybe there was something he could only see from an angle down there, something he had missed.

John crouched down next to the bed...

"...?!"

And a hand shot out from underneath it.


	3. To Fetch a Pail of Water

I have to tell all the readers now that what happened next was not typically my reaction on meeting a suspicious character. I do not normally jump up and scream like a girl. In my defense, I was suffering from a case of post-traumatic stress disorder and having the monster under my bed suddenly take living form was quite a shock. Especially as I was locked in the room with him.

I'm rather averse to writing this part, so I guess you will have to fill in the details yourselves from the context. Enough about me. Back to the story.

* * *

"Adam Young... am I correct?" John looked down at the business card in his hand. He and the mysterious stranger had moved from the bedroom to the living room of the house, and were now sat on the sofa at right angles to one another.

"You are, of course. Why would I not put my real name on my business card?" John narrowed his eyes.

He was familiar enough with mystery novels and history in general to know the story of Adam Young, the 'Napoleon of Crime', a man who had lived more than a hundred years ago and had pulled off so many scams he had become infamous in the criminal world. And in the detective world. Nobody would name their kids that; it was just plain bad luck.

Which meant the name on the business card was almost definitely an alias. Still, he decided to just go with it. After all, his day really could not get much weirder.

'Adam Young' was a fairly tall man with dark brown hair. He looked like he hadn't had enough sleep last night. Scratch that, he looked like he had been sleeping under the bed all night (I must interject, with my knowledge many years later, that it is entirely possible that he had). His hair was ruffled, though his clothes were not that shabby. He wore a scarf around his neck which he may have used as a pillow. Maybe.

"According to this business card, it says you're a detective."

'Adam Young - Detective' read the card. Adam nodded.

"Are you a private detective, then?"

"Oh, no. I find the label carries connotations of egotism. You may say I am... an unprivate detective, a detective without ego."

Right. Okay. Did that mean he was licensed? Probably not.

John set the business card down as far away from him as possible and wiped the hand that had touched it on his sleeve.

"So, Mr. Young, what were you doing under the bed?"

"Investigating, of course! And please, call me Adam." Adam said, without the slightest change in his expression. "Well, actually, I was looking for this." He held up a coin that he had kept in his hand. It was a fifty-pence piece. "I dropped it under the bed."

"..."

"I was hired by the parents of Jacob Merrivale to investigate their son's death. It appears to me that you are here for much the same reasons, John Watson."

"..."

Whoever this guy was, private detective or not, John didn't want anything to do with him. He just wanted Adam Young to walk out the door and not come back – the guy was more than a little bit creepy. Plus, Sherlock had explicitly stated that John was not allowed to phone him when anyone else was around, for fear that their conversation might be overheard and somehow used to track down his identity – or something along those lines.

John wondered if he was getting desensitised to weird stuff happening around him these days. Refuge in Audacity, it was called. Sometimes, things were so far off the crazy scale that the brain didn't properly comprehend and you were forced to just go with it. Today definitely felt like that.

"Yes, I am a detective. I am also investigating the scene on behalf of a private individual, who wishes to remain nameless."

"Oh good! We can cooperate!" Adam said instantly. You know, nerve like that was oddly refreshing.

"Right… Well, was there anything interesting under the bed that might solve this case? Apart from the coin, I mean. Anything the killer may have left behind."

"No, nothing. I simply heard someone enter the house, dropped this poor coin in my shock, and went to retrieve it. When you entered the room, it was clear that the best course of action was to hide and monitor the situation. After a while, if became clear that you were a benign character, so I felt safe to emerge."

Yeah, right. He'd only popped out because John had been looking under the bed.

"What other sort of character would I be? Dangerous?"

"Exactly! For example, the killer himself, returning to retrieve something he had forgotten. In that case, what a chance! Apparently, my hopes were in vain."

Okay. That lie was even worse than the last one. John was almost completely convinced now that Adam had been hiding under the bed so John would not notice him while talking to Sherlock, which meant he could overhear the conversation. Normally, this might be labelled 'paranoia', but everything about the man spoke of putting on an act.

"However, I have been lucky enough to meet you, John Watson! I would say we take advantage of this golden opportunity, and collaborate together on this case. What do you say?"

"No. Thanks for the offer, but I must keep all my investigation private." Not really the case, but he didn't want to work with this creep. "I'm sure you have your secrets too."

"I don't." Instant response.

"…You're a detective. All detectives have secrets."

"Really? I do have secrets then." Flexible. Either way was fine with him. "However, this case takes precedence over my secrets, so I have decided on a course of action: I will give you all the information I possess, in return for nothing."

"Oh, no, you don't have to-"

"It is the only proper course of action, John Watson. This is not a detective novel; I have no reason not to fully cooperate with you. My client only wishes this case solved. He does not care who solves it." Well, there went any hopes of getting rid of him. John gave up and nodded in agreement.

"So, what do you have?" Adam Young's face lit up like a Christmas tree. John stepped back a little. Adam pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and smoothed it out on the table between them.

It was a crossword puzzle. John stared.

"A little while back, somebody sent this to the police. They dismissed it as a prank and eventually threw it in the rubbish bin. I retrieved it." John hoped he meant that figuratively, rather than literally crawling around in a skip. "It was a very, very hard puzzle, John. I almost didn't solve it." He retrieved another crumpled sheet of paper and smoothed it out over the first. This one was a photocopy that had had the answers filled in. Or what were probably the answers anyway – John didn't even understand any of the questions, so he couldn't tell.

"This is…" Sherlock had told him about the puzzle.

"Oh, so you know of it?"

"Er… not directly…" John stammered. Adam was staring at him intently, as if watching his reaction. As if judging his ability.

"What matters is, if you were to solve this puzzle, it would give you the address of this house. I have therefore deduced that the killer is leaving clues, and what better place to leave them than at the scenes themselves!" He sat back triumphantly and repocketed the crosswords. "So, John, what do you think?"

Well, it certainly seemed like Adam Young was a real detective. John would have dismissed his theories as overhearing his conversation with Sherlock while under the bed, but since Adam had a copy of the crossword puzzle, it could only be that he had thought of them himself. Who was this man? He had the exact same conclusions as Sherlock. Suddenly, finding out his identity had become of critical importance again.

"Excuse me, John Watson. Would you like some lunch?"

It was past noon. John's stomach had been growling for half an hour or so now, but he had refrained from mentioning it.

"No, thank you." He wouldn't trust anything this guy gave him.

"Well, I must congratulate you on your devotion to this case! However, I believe that you would function considerably more normally if you had eaten. Please, do help yourself to some food from the fridge. I brought some of my own."

Cautiously, John left the living room and tiptoed over to the refrigerator. He didn't turn his head around, but he listened intently for signs of being followed. Paranoia? Maybe.

On the fridge door, he very quickly slammed it again.

"Why is there a jar with eyeballs in the fridge?!" Footsteps behind him, and John turned around to face Adam who was peering at him.

"Oh, those. I was doing some experiments with them, and I didn't want to leave them at home. You don't mind, do you?" He attempted to pull off the puppy eyes. It didn't work. "The packed lunch is on the shelf below them. Some of the juices may have dripped onto it a little, but do not fear - my experiments are kept sterile."

John just gaped.

"Y-you have strange habits." There wasn't much else to say.

"Do you think so? I don't." Adam opened the fridge and took what looked like a hunk of bread from the shelf. It looked the tiniest bit soggy. "Would you like it? I never eat while working on a crime, but I always keep food handy for emergencies."

By which, he meant that he'd somehow worked out that John would be investigating. And brought what was apparently his idea of lunch. John Watson shivered in disgust. Was that slime? Eww.

"N-no thanks..." He would turn that down even if he was starving to death. He'd never had much confidence in his ability to fake a smile, but the one he pulled off just then was pretty convincing. People can apparently smile even when terrified.

"Okay. Let us go." Adam put the bread-thing back in the fridge and closed the door.

"Go? Go where?" asked John, desperately searching for a way to refuse on the off-chance that Adam wanted to shake his hand.

"Obviously." Adam said. "To continue our investigation of the scene, John."

* * *

I did always wonder at the time why Sherlock Holmes was using me to investigate the crime scene instead of going there himself. I later learned that his brother, Mycroft Holmes, had apparently decided that he had had enough of Sherlock dashing from crime scene to crime scene, putting himself in great danger more than once and injuring himself pretty badly at times. He had ordered – and when I say ordered, I mean a polite request backed up by some rather shady people in suits with guns – Sherlock to stay in his house in the countryside. Mycroft thought that by allowing him contact with an operative on the scene, he would minimise the risk to Sherlock's health, and hopefully prevent the mad dashes and high-speed chases through London that always seemed to happen around Sherlock.

Sherlock Holmes, of course, was not happy one bit with this arrangement. He had escaped Mycroft's confinement twice before I became involved. Eventually, he agreed to a compromise with Mycroft – as long as nobody saw him anywhere near the scenes of the crimes, he would be allowed out of the house whenever he wished. He knew Mycroft had tapped his connection to me (despite all his best efforts, and despite never having found the bug, he just knew) and would be listening out for signs that he was actually communicating remotely through me, and not just sneaking into the scenes unnoticed. In actual fact, I honestly believe that the real reason Sherlock wasn't hauled back by Mycroft was because he was phoning me all the time, and that convinced his brother that Sherlock was sticking to the rules they had set up. Still, phone conversations were no substitute for actually being there, and Sherlock knew this very well.

* * *

Back to the point.

"Adam, I don't think there is much left here to find. I mean, it's already been searched by the police, and I had a pretty good look..."

Adam Young looked up from his position on all fours on the floor, intently inspecting the bottom of the bookshelf with a magnifying glass.

"But the police overlooked the crossword puzzle, John. It's highly plausible that they overlooked other things as well. Join me!"

John fought the urge to back slowly out of the room. It was beneath his pride as a man - no, as a human being. He didn't even know investigators even did that, nowadays.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Oh? A shame. Well, John, do you have any ideas as to what we should do next? Any area of this room which would benefit from my close inspection?"

Not really, thought John. The room itself just didn't have enough stuff in it to hide anything. Although, now that he thought about it, there was one thing he needed help with...

He pulled out a photo from his pocket.

"Adam, take a look at this. I'm not saying that I agree to cooperate with you; I just want to know what you think of these cuts."

Adam Young rose up from the floor like a zombie rising up from his grave. He gave the photo a long, intent look, then-

"Well done, John Watson. No pictures of the body were released to the media, so this picture must be from the police files. You have a source inside Scotland Yard? Good work. We are one step closer to solving this investigation!"

"..." Not what he was looking for, but John couldn't deny that it was a good deduction. "Okay, so I thought that maybe the killer, instead of leaving a message on something here, he left a message on something that should be here, but isn't. And the most obvious thing is the body, so..."

"So you believe the cuts are a message? Hmm, yes, I think so." He was still looking at the photo, not raising his eyes to meet John's.

"Well, I thought some of them looked like musical symbols - you know, a sharp? Maybe it's a musical score." He didn't mention the hashtags. That sounded stupid even in his head.

Adam Young opened his fingers and let the picture of the body swish to the floor.

"No. That's not it. Not sharps. Not hashtags either." Okay, that was even creepier than usual. "No, the message is different than that. The killer was playing a game."

Right. That helped so much.

"Yes, I think we've established that."

"Not a figurative game. Not a metaphorical one, either. A literal game. He was playing tic-tac-toe on the body." Wait, what?

John bent down and picked up the photo again. Now that he looked, really looked, with that purpose in mind... it was obvious.

The criss-cross patterns were game boards. The single crosses were the Xs of the game. No Os... but ignoring that detail, it was definitely four games of Noughts and Crosses.

"Excuse me, I need to use the toilet." He left the room and shut the door on Adam Young.

Once in the bathroom, he took out his phone and called Sherlock Holmes. The scrambled voice answered after one ring.

"How is the investigation proceeding, John Watson?"

"Uuuh, well. I think I've figured something out."

"Oh, good. Please share your deductions. I do not care how outlandish they may be. You are probably wrong anyways."

"How do I put this? A kind of... mysterious private detective..."

Mysterious private detective. The phrase itself was so cliche John could have laughed.

"...just showed up. He's helping me work things out."

"Was he cool?" John was thrown completely for a loop.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Was he hip and trendy? Did you find his attitude comforting and approachable?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"You want an honest answer?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely not. Creepy and pathetic, and if I'd seen him in Afghanistan I would probably have shot him for looking suspicious. If we divided everyone in the world into those that would be better off dead and those who wouldn't, he'd definitely be in the former camp. Such a complete weirdo that it amazes me he hasn't killed himself."

Silence on the end of the line. Sherlock did not answer. What was this about?

The awkward pause stretched on. It got uncomfortable enough that John felt he should talk. So, he told Sherlock about how Adam had a copy of the crossword. That got a reaction of some kind, but John was unable to decipher the emotion behind the synthetic sound.

"So, John Watson, your instructions. If you believe that this detective is helping you, then by all means share any information you have with him. However, I would prefer it if you did not mention my involvement. Is he close by?"

"No, I'm alone. I don't think he can overhear."

What have you found out so far?"

"The cuts on Jacob Merrivale's body were Noughts and Crosses boards." A slight shuffling sound on the other end of the line.

"It could be interpreted that way, I think. Well done. You have made a positive contribution! You just exceeded my expectations for you." Well. Okay. "What else have you deduced, John Watson?"

"I didn't really have anything else..."

"No matter. Return to your investigation of the scene. You may be able to determine more of the message. Call me again on the same number when you have either solved the case or properly admitted defeat." Click.

John stowed the phone in his pocket, tried not to sigh, and opened the door to leave.

"!"

Adam Young was standing right outside his door.

"After you left the room, I discovered something interesting, and was unable to wait. I came to get you. Are you quite finished?" He wasn't on all fours, so he hadn't been listening at the crack under the door, but it still made John suspicious.

"Y-yes, I'm done."

"This way." He strode off down the hallway and John was forced to follow him like some kind of puppy, all the while considering whether Adam might have overheard any of his conversation. He had kept his voice pretty low, so he shouldn't have, but he had almost certainly been trying to, which meant...

"Oh, John..." Adam said without turning around. "Why didn't I hear the toilet flush before you left the room?"

"...Isn't it rude to ask someone that, Adam?" John winced internally at his mistake. Adam didn't seem phased.

"Is it? Nevertheless, if you forgot to flush, it is not too late. You can still go back." Baiting. Testing. He knew; John was sure of it.

"I was on the phone. Just a check in with my client. I did not want you to hear some of it."

"Oh? Then I recommend flushing from now on. It provides good camouflage."

"I suppose it does." John thought it may have been just his imagination, but Adam Young seemed a little more sullen and hostile. Just a tinge, but the feeling was there. Could it be that he had, in fact, overheard the conversation and worked out that he had been insulted. No, surely not... the door would muffle the sound, right?

They reached the bedroom. Adam went down on all fours as soon as they crossed the threshold. It looked like a religious ritual. He scrabbled across the floor, making a beeline for the bookshelves. John waited at the door, not sure he wanted to follow.

"You said you... found something new? You found some clue on the bookshelf?" Adam pointed to one of the books - or, more specifically two of them.

"I love this series."

"You do?"

"I do."

How was he supposed to respond to that?

"Er, well, I guess that's... good..." Adam flicked both books out with one hand each, using his thumbs and the lever principle. The row of books, previously a tight fit, tipped over towards the gap.

"What matters, John, is that these are books one and three. In a three book series. Where is book two?"

Sitting cross-legged on the floor like that, Adam Young looked like some kind of statue of a pair of scales, weighing up the two books on flat palms.

"Maybe he didn't want book two?"

"Have you ever read a book, John?" Adam didn't wait for his answer, not even comprehending that his question could be taken as offensive. "Then you will know that one does not simply purchase book one and book three. It is not done. I am positive that this must be part of the killer's message!"

John wasn't impressed.

"Look, Adam, The reason why only books one and three are here is probably because there wasn't room on the shelf for book two. Put those back and we'll go look at the photographs of the body again." Adam Young pouted. It didn't look cute. Nevertheless, he replaced the books and migrated over to where John was looking at the photos spread out on the bed.

"Noughts and crosses, noughts and crosses... tic-tac-toe..." John spoke the words out loud, thinking that maybe it would make more sense that way. "What's so special about this game that meant he had to play it over the body?"

It was Adam who answered his out loud thoughts.

"There are no zeros. Is that part of the message?"

Possible. Highly possible. Something that should be there, but isn't...

"How many zeros should there be? Maybe that's the message?" Adam reached over John's shoulder and plucked up the paper. John didn't bother protesting. Adam pulled out a black marker pen.

A few squeaks of pen on laminated card later, he returned the photo to John.

"That is how many zeroes there should be. All the games ended in draws except for the top-left one - see, the Xs made a row of three there. Assuming Xs go before Os and the numbers read right-left top-bottom, the number of zeros is 2, 4, 4, 4."

Two. Four, Four, Four. What did that mean? Something, probably. Or maybe only the two had significance? After all, the other digits were the same. Two. Hmm...

"Or, maybe it's the simple fact that zeros are missing." John wasn't sure quite what made him say that, but it sounded right to him. Adam also nodded appreciatively.

"John, that is entirely probable - or at least likely to be part of the message." Slightly odd praise, but hey, it was better than nothing. John went over to the bookshelf again.

"Zero. Zero. Is there anything here with a title of Zero?" No books. However, there was a game. Zero Escape. John took the game box out and opened it to get a look at anything that might be inside.

Nothing was there. Well, there was the instruction manual, but the actual game had vanished.

"Huh... maybe it was in the console when the police took it away?" John had a quick check through all the other games. They were all present.

Definitely suspect.

"John, would you say that the killer left us a message by taking the game away and taking away all the other zeros to point us to this fact? What message can we get from this?"

John thought hard. Nothing. He opened the game box again, and looked at the blurb on the back. Then he took out the instruction manual for the game.

"Well, I guess if there is a message it could be in here..."

There were actually two manuals. One specific to the game and one, a red one, welcoming the player to some sort of gamers club. Nothing messagewise.

The sound of flicking pierced John's thought and he glared annoyedly at Adam, who was repeatedly tossing the fifty-pence coin.

"Don't you have something better to do?"

"Well, you seem to be working fine without me. Besides, I find repetitive hand motions to be conductive to thinking." He continued to toss the coin. John's eyes narrowed and at the next possible opportunity, he swiped the coin from the air. You needed quick reflexes to be in the army, and it paid off sometimes.

Going back to the manuals with the coin still in his hand, John noticed that the red one had a section where you could scrape off the grey cover to reveal a code that would give you points in some online club. Thinking 'what the hell', he tried it.

The word 'UNDERWOOD' was printed, in block capitals, as the code. John nearly dropped the coin in shock.

"So, John, did you find anything?" Adam Young was back on all fours by the bookshelf, having spoken across the room. Whether he had heard John's slight start remained a mystery.

"The surname... he left us the surname of the next victims..."

"Show me." He made no move to get up. John took the manual and walked over. Adam snatched it from his hand.

"Interesting... nevertheless, this cannot be the complete message. There are too many people with the surname 'Underwood' in London, and it could point to any one of them." He dropped the leaflet on the floor to the side of him and continued to stare with an unbreakable gaze at the books on the shelf.

John couldn't shake off the feeling that he had done something wrong. Like he had solved the clues out of order, in some way. Surely, he wasn't meant to find the surname first - people, especially children like the two victims Jack and Jill had been, were not addressed with their surnames first.

"Adam, did you find anything?"

"No, I am simply contemplating the idea that the books are somehow involved in the killer's message. I thought it was a rather good idea, but you evidently disagree. Therefore, I am conducting an investigation on my own." He kept looking at the books, still lying on the floor (his trouser legs resting on the red stain in the centre of the carpet... aaand, John was not going to think about that).

John looked again at the books. Number two was missing... two... 2, 4, 4, 4? Related somehow? He looked on the shelf for other series.

The only one was a trilogy of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Each of the books were about five hundred pages long.

On a whim, he opened the second book to page 444 and scanned it for any hints.

"Adam... I think I've got it." Adam looked up from the floor and positively beamed at John.

"Really? Ooh, is that a fairy-tale book? I used to love those as a child!" He stood up and peered over it, reading upside-down the words on the page. It brought their heads uncomfortably close together, but John didn't bother with a protest. He was too busy staring at the rhyme on page 444.

'Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of water...'

The killer had left a message.

The cuts on the body, the missing book and game - the killer had left a message. Just like the crossword puzzle sent to the police, the killer had left a message describing his next victim...

"Nice work, John." Adam said, unruffled. "Very good deduction. I never would have thought of it."

(Later, when the case had finished, I would realise how thoroughly I had been played, and Sherlock would have a good laugh at my expense.)


	4. Mirrors for the Blind

Sherlock Holmes was the world's only consulting detective. At the time of this case, his track record was such that his ability was greater than any other crime-solving individual or team in the UK, and perhaps the world. With great ability comes great responsibility. Sherlock was unable to work in public (or so Mycroft reasoned) because doing so was dangerous.

At this point, if someone wanted to commit a crime, they could greatly increase their chances of getting away with it simply by killing Sherlock Holmes before they began. For a mind of Sherlock's ability, self-preservation and the preservation of world peace were one and the same - and this is how I know for absolute certain that Sherlock did not care one bit about world peace. He only cared about occupying his mind, and if putting his body in danger was the way to ensure this, then he would do it without hesitation.

Mycroft Holmes was, of course, not amused by this at all. He had attempted reason with his brother, to no avail. Forced kidnapping had eventually been used to emphasise the point - both how Mycroft was able to force him to do this if he didn't agree, and also a demonstration of Sherlock's vulnerability.

There was, however, one other reason why Sherlock at least outwardly agreed to Mycroft's proposal. He had recently become aware of a threat specifically targeting him. One man - or it could be a woman, but that was statistically unlikely. He did not yet have a name. However, he was on the lookout for the next incidence of this enemy's work.

So, at the very second that he solved the crossword and realised the true purpose of these murders, he became elated and sought to solve them. It was a challenge left specifically for him.

John Watson was originally recruited as just a random handyman, used so he could get around Mycroft's requirements. However, after his work at the first crime scene, which implied a mind that was sharper than the majority of others - if nowhere near his own level - Sherlock decided to step back a little, to see if the mysterious assailant was worthy of matching wits with himself by checking if John Watson could also solve the cases.

Well, he may have not restrained himself from giving a few hints...

* * *

September 13th.

John Watson was in the East End, on his way to visit the scene of the second and third murders. He did not know his way around the neighbourhood, and had to puzzle over a poorly-calibrated map on his smartphone to find his way.

With the knowledge of a fourth murder soon to occur, he had wanted to come straight here from Jacob Merrivale's, but there were so many outstanding chores to be done that he had ended up waiting until the next day. Adam Young had left just after they had solved the message at the scene, with a smile, wave and a "See you tomorrow, John Watson!". John thought the smile looked rather out of place on his face, like he was forcing himself to do something he didn't normally do.

According to Sherlock Holmes, a detective named Adam Young had actually been hired to investigate Jacob Merrivale's killer, and had been hired by the mother of the second and third victims too. It seemed a little too good to be true, but John wasn't in any place to question it. But nothing had turned up so far about Adam's background, so he had been asked to cooperate and keep a careful eye out; to pretend they were investigating the matter together. Again, this seemed suspicious, and John had to wonder if maybe Sherlock was withholding something. However, he couldn't find a reason why, and so he just dismissed the issue.

The thought of seeing Adam again was rather depressing. Last night, he had had a nightmare about the man crawling like a spider on his room floor. Even with the broken alarm clock, John was out of bed well before he needed to be. And then, at that moment, on September 13th, at 9 o'clock a.m...

John Watson was assaulted.

He was taking a shortcut though a dark, deserted alleyway when someone hit him from behind with a blackjack. Or, rather, failed to hit him - since he ducked in time, and avoided it. A blackjack is not a heavy weapon, just a very simple affair; it consists of nothing but a little bag filled with sand. Its simplicity makes it easy to conceal and to make, and it is undeniably effective if the element of surprise is on your side.

John heard the whistle of air as it sliced down behind him, and twisted out of the way. He had seen danger in every shadow since his return from Afghanistan, and so he was not caught by surprise. All other thoughts fled his mind as he reacted reflexively, dropping low to the ground and then striking up with a punch. It didn't connect - but that was no problem, because all he had really been trying to do was get a glimpse of his attacker. There was only one, and he wore a mask. In addition to the blackjack, he was carrying a heavy club in his left hand. This was no ordinary thug. John Watson jumped back, evading the swing of the club, and went for his gun.

Unfortunately, he had it stowed away in his jacket pocket where it would be unnoticeable. He hadn't anticipated needing to draw it quickly, and the three seconds it took were enough for his assailant to realise what he was about to take out, turn around, and sprint off down the alleyway, rounding a corner and vanishing.

John stood there a moment, breathing briefly considered giving chase, and had taken a couple of steps in that direction before stopping. He was pretty sure it was a man who had attacked him, and John had never been a very fast runner - certainly not fast enough to make up for the head start, and he didn't know they alleys around here. Also, he now walked with a limp. He wasn't even going to bother wasting the energy.

John pulled out his cellphone and sent a text to Sherlock. He waited for the phone to ring, but it didn't happen. The detective was probably doing something else. The report was not urgent, and he had not been injured, so it could wait. He needed to find the crime scene first.

John Watson left the alley behind, resolving himself to mentioning the attack the next time Sherlock called him.

* * *

As expected, John Watson had not come after him.

He left the alley and hailed a cab at the first possible opportunity, driving for five minutes in one direction before paying the cabbie, stepping out, and hailing another cab. Just to be sure, he instructed the second driver to take a route which partially doubled back on itself and ended in a particular parking lot where he knew there were no security cameras. He left there on foot, after having disposed of the blackjack, club and mask by taping them to the underside of one of the cars. He left no fingerprints.

He had never planned to kill John Watson, although when he struck out with the blackjack it could easily have been a fatal hit. He would have been surprised if that had happened, he really would. And just a teensy bit... disappointed. But he knew that Sherlock Holmes would find another lapdog to do his work for him.

The dodge, however, had been entirely expected. John Watson had not let down his expectations. He had been impressive in the way he fought. He could see why Sherlock was using John as a pawn. He had brains and guts.

He had the right.

He was worthy of being an opponent.

The assailant cracked his neck. He walked on down the street.

John's attacker...

The man behind the JM homicides, Jim Moriarty, walked on down the street grinning cruelly.

* * *

"Ah, John Watson. You are late." said Adam Young without turning around, the moment he entered apartment 203 where the Underwoods had lived. "Please, try to be on time. As has become apparently obvious in the last few hours, being quick can save a life."

John stopped short at that. How the heck had he known? The only person he had told about the incident in the alleyway was-

"John? You seem confused. I take it you have not seen the news today?" John shook his head, slightly bewildered. "Then I regret to inform you that our mysterious killer struck again last night. Jennifer Middleton, a young lady from the south end of town, was found dead this morning. I would have thought your contact would have told you."

Not the best way to start the day, thought John with a sinking feeling in his chest. He'd been planning to work off some of his frustration at the alleyway fight by getting into an argument with Adam and seeing what it would take to rile the other man up. However, this new piece of information yanked the rug out from under that plan, and he just didn't feel like it anymore.

Kudos to Adam if the yanking had been deliberate, but John suspected it was just another one of those days. Like yesterday had been. Well, it probably explained why Sherlock had not been contacting him. He was probably busy getting information.

John looked around the room - the entire apartment was smaller than Jacob Merrivale's lounge had been. The gap in living standards alone made it pretty hard to see any kind of connection between the two victims.

"So, Mrs. Underwood was a single mother? Who has now moved back in with her parents? It must have been very traumatic..."

"Yes. These apartments are designed for college students and meant to house one person only. A family of three taking up permanent residence had raised many eyebrows. I was able to look over the police report you showed me yesterday and talk to the neighbours this morning, and I heard many interesting things."

"What sort of things?" John ignored the fact that Adam had apparently 'looked over' the report despite not possessing a copy. Either it was a photographic memory or something else he really didn't want to know.

"Very interesting ones. However, none that would benefit the case, I believe."

"Right."

As he spoke, John went over to the hole in the wall on the left side of the bedroom, where the doll had been nailed. Of the four walls, the one with the door was the only one without a hole. Obviously, the dolls had been removed from this scene, too.

"Is something bothering you, John Watson?"

"Yes... yesterday, we decoded the message from the killer, but the dolls and the locked room remain mysteries... why? and how?"

"Yes." Adam dropped into a squat and surveyed the cluttered room. Three people had lived here, so the lack of space was little surprise. "It is rather odd. But, remember, this is not a mystery novel - realistically speaking, he probably used a spare key to open the door. There are no keys that cannot be duplicated, and it is fairly obvious that these murders were planned in advance."

"But still, why? There was no real need to create a locked room, but he still did it. In which case, it might be a kind of puzzle..."

"Puzzle?" Adam frowned.

"Or a game of some kind..."

"Yes... yes, maybe."

John looked back at the door he had just come through. The design was, of course, different from the first murder scene (the difference between the front door of an apartment and the interior door of a house), but the construction and size were basically the same. A generic lock, made very simply - easily broken by drilling a hole through the door and turning the latch from the inside (a thumb turn lock). Obviously, though, there were no holes in the doors in either the first scene or this one, and he doubted the third scene would have one either.

"What would you do, Adam? If you were trying to lock it from the outside?"

"Use a key."

"No, not like that... if you'd lost the key."

"Use a spare key."

"No, if you didn't have a spare key either."

"Then I wouldn't lock it."

"..."

Not that John could fault the logic. He reached out and gave the door handle a shake.

"If this were a mystery novel, then it would be created by some sort of trick. They always are. Like... string under the door, tied to the latch. Pull the string, and the door locks itself. Something like that."

"No, that wouldn't work. You could pull the string, but the force wouldn't transfer. It would just dissipate into the door. The only effect that would have is to pull outward a door that only opens inward."

"Yeah, I know..." John sighed. "This lock doesn't give much room for a trick, does it? The locks in detective stories are usually much more complex."

"There are many ways to create a locked room, and we can't rule out the possibility that he just used a spare key. The question of 'why' seems more important here, John. If he made a puzzle, as you suggested, why would he do it?"

"For fun. To confuse the hell out of us."

"Why? If he really wanted to confuse us, he could have simply not left a message at the scene."

"..."

Yeah, this made no sense.

Why send the crossword puzzle? Why leave the message? Why lock the rooms? Most of all... why kill four people? What the hell was the motive supposed to be? They still had no idea what linked the victims together.

John leant against the wall and took out some photographs. Pictures of the two victims. A boy and a girl, twins, both lying on their fronts. Comparatively little blood. Their eyes had been crushed after death - like the cuts on Jacob Merrivale's chest, this was mutilation of the corpse, with no relation to the actual cause of death. He wasn't sure what type of weapon had been used - from a quick examination, it looked like a sharp stab had poked them out - but trying to imagine the mental state of a person who could quite happily do such a thing made John feel physically sick. Some things were simply unforgivable.

"Killing a child... how horrible."

"Killing an adult is equally horrible, John Watson. If not more so." Adam seemed unaffected, almost indifferent.

"What? Of course not! Are you some kind of psychopath?"

"I don't believe so."

"I do."

"Oh, I'm not a psychopath. I am simply a high-functioning sociopath."

(I looked up the difference later. The outward symptoms are the same; it lies in the causes of the behaviour. Psychopaths are assumed to be born that way. The trait is genetic. Sociopaths are a product of poor upbringing - hence the high-low functioning distinction. Some sociopaths are so traumatised they completely lose the ability to normally interact. Essentially, stating you are a sociopath rather than a psychopath is a veiled attempt to insult the family and society that raised you.)

"Adam... I am seriously starting to consider that you may be the killer."

"That's nice." Adam nodded, not looking like he was paying much attention. He was too busy scouring the room. "Aaah, this looks quite promising."

From under a desk, he pulled out a shoebox and took off the lid. Inside were some squares of coloured paper, some blank A4 white paper, some origami models, and a couple of used felt-tip pens.

"Wait, why is this useful?"

"John Watson. I'm disappointed you didn't figure it out."

"Huh?"

"Jack Underwood and Jill Underwood have shoe sizes of 4 and 3, respectively. Quite small for their age, I believe. Sara Underwood, their mother, is size 8. This shoebox is for shoes size 6 of an expensive make, and you can easily tell by the condition it is in that it is fairly new. This family are certainly not rich enough to spend their money buying shoes they will be unable to properly wear. Conclusion: the killer placed what he wanted us to look through in one box and then highlighted it so we would not have to scour this cluttered apartment to find his puzzle."

John gaped. Yes, the shoe sizes had been in the report, but...

"That was... that was bloody amazing, Adam." He couldn't deny it, not even if he didn't like the person making the deduction. "I would never have figured that out, not if I had spent days looking."

"No, you wouldn't have. Let us look through this box, then."

Page by page, John went through the squares and rectangles of paper to check for any messages. Not one. At least, nothing visible - but surely the killer was a little classier than just leaving messages in invisible ink, right?

"Did the police thoroughly scan this place for fingerprints too?"

"Yes, John. All the paper was wiped. Even the inside of the origami models. They took one apart and put it back together, just to check." That... was absurdly detailed knowledge that John was pretty sure had not been in the police report.

"How do you know? Do you have a source?"

"It's possible. However, John Watson, do not underestimate the skill of my own thoughts. This model" he held up an origami crane "has clearly been unfolded and then refolded along the crease lines by a person with no talent in origami whatsoever. You can easily tell from the way the white is starting to show through the coloured side at the fold marks, as well as the extreme sloppiness with the creasing the second fold." Adam then picked up another crane. "This has had a similar treatment, except far less harsh. It has quite clearly been unfolded and refolded by a master in the art. What does this tell us, John?"

John has been lost by the end of the first sentence.

"That... either Jack or Jill, whoever this stuff belongs to, liked to conserve paper?"

"There is plenty of paper. No, it tells us that the killer went through these models and wiped fingerprints from the inside of all of them. Then, the dimwitted fools of the police checked one model only and failed miserably in putting it back together."

John took a better look at another origami model. This one looked like some kind of fox. It was red. Try as he might, he couldn't really see any difference. If somebody had refolded it, it would have to be someone good with folding.

"So, are you saying that our killer likes origami." Well, John guessed it was a start. Having a profile of the killer could help when interviewing suspects. Plus, it might explain the obsession with the dolls, if they liked paper folding too. Maybe they were asian? Maybe they just liked artsy stuff?

"Oh, John, I can't even fathom what it must be like for you. Can you really not see? It is right here. You have all the facts."

"What?"

"The killer went through all the models. The police went through one, the one on top of the pile. It is highly likely the killer knew the police would do this. In fact, that is probably why he wiped the fingerprints from everywhere. So the police would assume nothing was on the inside of the other models, and not look. He directed us to this box, and nothing else in it seems suspect."

It clicked.

"So he hid a message on the inside of one of the other models?"

"Probably." Adam Young started to unfold the crane in his hands. "Feel free to look around the room some more. I shall do the unfolding, as I am somewhat of an expert in that area. Call it a hobby from a little while ago."

Okay. Right. John looked around the room some more. He really wasn't sure what he was actually looking for, and felt a little like he'd been shoved to the side so he wouldn't impede the investigations.

Adam was systematically dismantling the models with precision, skill and speed. John narrowed his eyes as he watched, wondering if the other man was aware of how suspicious that made him look. After all, they had just found out that the killer had a papercraft hobby, and here he was displaying the same thing.

But surely, if he was the killer, he wouldn't be stupid enough to be that blatant, right?

"John, I think I have found the message." He held up an unfolded paper sheet between his fingers. Blue dots were on the inside.

John went over and looked at the dots. One second of silence... two seconds..

"It's in Braille." He recognised it from his work treating blinded civilians in Afghanistan. Adam frowned.

"Are you sure?" He sounded a little put out, like the wind had been stolen from his sails. This, of course, made John feel rather smug.

"Yes. It seems to be quite advanced Braille though, so I can't read all the characters. Something... double i, w, something something... I think we might need a key chart for this. But this is definitely the message. Huh. That was pretty easy compared to the last scene."

One key chart later, and John was eating his words. The message was anything but simple.

**ouiiwouwh * fowilcash; * aav**

"That makes no sense whatsoever!"

"Maybe we are reading it the wrong way up?" suggested Adam helpfully. They checked that. That was also a line of gibberish.

"I can't believe this was supposed to be easy." He had gotten so excited; thought he'd worked everything out already. Now, he just felt frustrated at himself.

"Maybe we should return to the study of the body, John Watson. It may help us make sense of the braille clue. In fact, let us take a quick refreshment break-" No. Not that again.

"No I don't-"

"Would you like a cup of tea, John Watson?" Well, that didn't seem too bad, he guessed...

"Okay."

"One moment." Adam Young disappeared into the tiny kitchen of the apartment. John realised, then, that he had completely missed his window of opportunity to mention the assault in the alleyway. Oh well. He may as well not bother. It's not as if it had much relevance to this 'un-private detective'.

"Here you are." John absentmindedly took a sip of tea, noting that Adam had something odd about his sitting posture that he couldn't quite pin down.

"Augh!" He tried to spit the tea out, coughing and hacking. "Uuuugh..."

"Is something wrong, John Watson?" asked Adam, innocently sipping from his cup. "I was unaware that such spitting was customary when drinking tea whilst in company."

"M-murderously sweet... poisonous!"

"Not poison. Sugar. Do you not take sugar in your tea?"

"..."

John looked down at the contents of the cup he held... which was not so much a liquid as a paste. Less like sugar dissolved in tea than sugar moistened with tea; a gooey, gelatinous mass glistening majestically in the bottom of the teacup. While he had been distracted, he had actually tried to drink it.

"I feel like I drank dirt." The diabolically gritty feeling in his mouth refused to go away. It wasn't even good sugar - it tasted like those types that came in sachets at the table and had a horrible aftertaste like they had sweetener mixed in.

Across from him, Adam was hastily sipping away... nope, lapping away. Apparently he had not made John's cup this way out of spite - this was simply, in his twisted worldview, a perfectly normal amount of sugar. Whoever this guy was, his tea-making skills were a disgrace to the very country of England.

"That was very nice." Adam said, finishing his cup and what must have been at least a hundred grams of pure sugar. "Now, to business."

John fought dearly to ignore the impulse to get up and wash the grit from his mouth.

"Go ahead."

"This morning, after hearing the name of the third victim on the news, I noticed an odd connection that nobody seems to have picked up on."

"What?"

"Their first names. Jacob, Jack, Jill and Jennifer. All begin with a J... yes, what is it?"

"Nothing..." John's disappointment had clearly shown on his face and interrupted Adam's line of thought, but he couldn't be bothered to cover. What a waste of time. John had noticed that ages ago; it wasn't worth bringing up like this. "Adam, do you know how many people there are in London whose name starts with a J? Roughly one in twenty-six. Heck, my name begins with a J. Even if that's how he chooses his victims it barely narrows it down at all."

"Oh? I thought I was on to something..." He threw a dejected look in John's direction. It was hard to tell how much of it was genuine.

"This is pointless."

"Very well. Since my deductions have come to naught, do you have any good ideas?"

"No, not really... can't think of anything that might help us decipher that message. Perhaps it's some kind of cryptographic code, and we have to find the key? Gah, I feel like I'm being completely played by the killer right now, but..."

"Then let yourself be played. We need to decipher the message our friend has left us. The question is, how?"

John thought for a moment.

"Well, if we can take a guess at what the contents are, we could use that to crack the code and get the full message? It's probably not the way the killer intended, but it might work." Adam Young scowled a little, but gave a grudging nod.

"It could work, I suppose... However, this killer has not made mistakes. It's unlikely. What do you believe the message would contain?"

"The next victim's name. Or address. Maybe both, but I think the message is too short for that. Were there any other messages on the origami models?"

"No. That dot pattern was the only dot pattern there." Adam swept a hand through the now slightly disheveled sheets of paper that now littered the floor. "Unless, of course, the killer used invisible ink. But I think that would be unlikely. Please, go on."

"Okay, so if we assume the message is the name. Jennifer Middleton. Or the address..."

"Eleven Macleod Street."

"Right. So, if we go on the assumption that each braille character represents a text character..."

"...Then the victim's name is two characters too short for the message, and the address is one character too long."

"..." How the heck...

"John Watson, you seem perplexed. Are you really so intelligently defunct that you are unable to count letters?" Adam didn't even miss a beat before moving on. "However, you are of course aware that braille does not function in that way. Extra characters are needed to denote format such as capital letters, and in advanced braille two or more letters may be shared under one character. Overall, it is futile to guess the exact content of the message, considering we know what it is likely to be and spending hours trying different combinations would, frankly, be a waste of time. No." His face cracked into a smile, and John felt that he really should step back a little before the creepiness became contagious. "The killer wishes for us to dance with him, John Watson, and dance with him we shall. Now, shall we move on to studying the victims?"

John wordlessly held out the photos and fought the urge to get out of there as quickly as possible. Adam gave them a cursory glance, before plucking them from John's hands and turning them around so he could scrutinise them the right way up.

"...So, Adam, is there anything?" Something that should be here, but wasn't. That phrase was starting to sound like a linguistic mobius strip. "Damage to the eyes?"

"Oh, that. I do not believe that is relevant any more. We skipped that part entirely."

"Wha?" Adam sighed melodramatically.

"Do I have to spell it out again? The victims were blinded, John. Blinded. It was obviously a clue to the fact that the dot pattern was a message in braille. However, thanks to your extraordinary recognition skills, we were able to circumvent that step. I do believe that if the killer gained word of this he would be rather annoyed that you were able to cheat at his game, even if it was a very small bending of the rules. We are not meant to skip ahead."

"But... if he doesn't want us to skip ahead, then why don't we just do that? Go to the next scene, whatever. Miss this one out."

"No. That, John Watson, is a very, very grave idea indeed." Adam's voice had suddenly gone dark with warning. The sudden mood swing caught John off guard. "First of all, the police require time to collect the necessary evidence and allow us inside the crime scene. Next, there is clearly a pattern with the victims and if we do not figure it out we will be at a huge disadvantage to working out the clues to victim number five. Third, it is best not to mess up the plans of a mentally unstable individual. There is no way of telling how they will retaliate."

John was suddenly reminded of the alleyway incident. Could that possibly have been...? No. No way. Too much of a coincidence.

"You said there was a pattern to the victims?"

"Yes. All Js." Not this again...

"Anything else?"

"Nope." The P was made with a popping sound, and that only got John irritated. "Apart from, of course, one thing."

"What?"

"These pictures were taken of the two bodies at the morgue, correct? Do you have any of the twins actually at the scene? The way the blood is smeared on the face suggests..." John gave up and surrendered more photos. "...as I thought. Take a look, John Watson. What is different about the photos?"

"I... I don't... has something been removed? I don't see... Oh! The body positions!"

"Yes."

At the crime scene, the two children had been lying face down. They had been rolled over to see the damage to the eyes while being photographed at the morgue.

"Should be here, but isn't... but these kids shouldn't be on their fronts, but are... except not anymore, they're not... should be here, but isn't... this is..."

"Unnatural." Adam supplied the word and started speaking John's thoughts out loud. "Corpses do not generally lie down on their fronts. Yet both of the children were found this way. This makes even less sense when you consider the damage done to the eyes. It indicates he killed them, mutilated the body while it faced up, and then turned it over. Unneeded and unnatural. It was not to hide the damage, as it would be plainly obvious once the authorities got a proper look at the corpses. Plus, the damage was never meant to be hidden."

John felt like he was teetering on the edge of a breakthrough, only needing a push or two more before he would topple off and the answer would come to him.

"Let me think for a minute..."

"John, when thinking, I recommend adopting a position such as this one." He looked down to see Adam sitting cross-legged on the floor looking for all the world like he was praying. Ah, what the hell. He sat down and closed his eyes. He could use some divine inspiration right now.

A sudden cold touch to his right arm made him shiver and his eyes snap open.

"What was that for!" He glanced at his upper arm to see the white sticky patch. "What did you just-"

"Nicotine. It helps me think. It may help you as well." John could have argued, could have kicked up a fuss about how inherently wrong it was to go around touching people and giving them drugs without their consent. He didn't bother. It wouldn't have any effect. So instead he just closed his eyes and thought, rather regretting sitting down in the first place.

...

Even sadder was the fact that his ideas clicked.

"Well, John?"

"The victims' names." They all began with a J. But it wasn't just that. "Their last names. At least the first and fourth ones. Merrivale; Middleton. Two Ms. The probability of two people having the same initials is roughly one in twenty-six squared-"

"-six hundred and seventy-six-"

"-so if these two's last names began with M as well, we'd have a good definitive link."

"An interesting theory, John Watson." John had the nagging suspicion Adam already had thought of it, but he shoved that thought away. "So, are you saying that the killer slipped up and murdered the wrong victim?"

"No, of course not. He left a message pointing to the name, and there's no way he would be stupid enough not to notice the wrong name if he got it printed out on a scratch-out leaflet."

"Oh, right. I forgot." That sounded so phony, it's a wonder it didn't start ringing.

"M, U, M... Is he spelling a message to someone? Or is he alternating between the letters? Do the two Us count as one letter? It was the same scene, and the same method of death when the others are totally unrelated, so maybe it's only one letter."

"But if two Us were put together as one letter, it would be a W."

"Yes, M-W-M could be the real... message..."

John trailed off and stared blankly as the realisation hit him like a tube train.

"Upside down. Flipped."

"Is there a connection between the body positions and the names, John Watson?" Adam's eyes had begun to gleam with a kind of 'at-last' triumphant expression. John didn't notice.

"The two Us. One letter for each body, but put them together to make a W. Bodies are flipped, so flip the letter and you get an M. JM." It was the missing link. One in six hundred seventy six. "I bet the killer must have had trouble finding victims to match his naming system, so he had no choice but to improvise a little with these two."

"...Hm. No, I don't think your last point is quite correct. After all, John Watson, it would surely be easier to find a JM than to find two JUs living in the same residence." John deflated a little. "Even so, the theory has merit. However, it tells us nothing about the cypher used on the braille."

"Yeah. I guess."

"Should we take another refreshment break while we figure out what to do next?"

"No!" Almost an instinctive reflex. There was no way John was ever going to drink that tea-slop again. His body rebelled against the very idea. In fact, it decided to suddenly make him aware of the grit still hanging around his mouth that he had been trying to ignore. "Uh, no thanks. I need to go to the bathroom though." He wanted to wash that taste out before he started to feel sick.

"Oh? Another secret check-in with your client? Do remember to flush the toilet, John." His face coloured.

"No, I wasn't going to phone anyone." It was the truth - in fact, he'd barely thought about phoning Sherlock when talking with Adam. It was as if they occupied the same space in John's mind, and he couldn't be reminded of one while focusing on the other.

"I believe you totally and wholeheartedly. Please take this with you. Your client may have some insight into its workings." Adam held out the dot-patterned message. John took it and left the room, making a beeline for the bathroom sink.

He gargled water once, twice, three times. By the end of the third gargle, the sickly-sweet taste had mostly vanished, and there was no more grainy feeling in his mouth.

He considered actually phoning Sherlock. Since that was what Adam expected him to do, shouldn't he take advantage of the free time? Maybe. Could he help decipher the code?

John looked at it. The dots were as dotty as usual. No solutions leapt out at him. He looked into the mirror. The same puzzled face stared back out. Then, he looked into the mirror. Really looked this time.

The pattern of dots was there, in the reflection of the bathroom. The pattern of dots that was now different. Flipped. And recognisable as easy braille.

"Adam, I think..." He squinted harder at the paper, trying to decipher what was on it. It wasn't that easy when you had to hold it to a mirror and still be close enough to read the text that wasn't even in a language you knew very well. John gave up.

Leaving the bathroom (and not flushing the toilet), he went back to where Adam was sitting on the floor and took out a pen from his clothing.

"John?"

"The message is flipped, just like the body and the name. Give me a second..." He held the paper, dots face up, to the light. The shadow showed through and he marked it with a pen. Then, he placed the mirrored dot pattern on the table and deciphered it. He didn't need a key this time. Only the common letters were used.

**11 Macleod Street**

"Well, I guess that sorts that."

(It was a while before I realised that it had been Adam who had pointed out the matching initials, who had been so insistent on taking the body positions as a clue, and who had given me that ghastly cup of tea that had driven me into the bathroom so the mirror provided me with the inspiration I needed to figure it out.

But, either way... the London JM Homicides. The missing link had been found, the critical detail that would, one day, give the case its name.)


	5. An Unfortunate Name

Imagine that you were going to kill someone? What, in your opinion, would be the most difficult part? Think about it.

The correct answer is, of course, killing someone. I'm being completely serious; this isn't some linguistic trick or me making fun of you. Humans were not designed to die easily. You may be surprised I hold this view - after all, I served as an army doctor and saw many cases of people being utterly obliterated or merely slipping into death from something as minor as a shoulder wound.

But, you see, that was with military-grade weaponry. Normally, with access to the materials a civilian possesses (this does not include a gun; I am somewhat unique and anyways already bending the law), it is incredibly difficult to subdue and murder a resisting adult human. It is even harder to take two at once.

I speculate now that this was probably the reason why Jim Moriarty chose children as his second and third victims. That, and he wanted to gain the attention of as many people as possible. Of course, doing something like a double child murder would gain him no favours with the criminal system if he was caught, but he never planned to be caught. Morals, too, didn't seem to exist with him - he followed the view that a child's life is worth less than an adult's, and that was probably why he felt no twinge of remorse whatsoever as he slaughtered two kids.

However.

When Jim Moriarty went around committing this series of murders, he had comparatively little trouble actually doing the killing. No defense wounds on any of the bodies, despite the rather horrific after-death wounds (the fourth corpse more so than the first three, but we will get to that soon). It's true that they were likely drugged, but at this point everyone had died with no resistance whatsoever. Why?

I entertained the notion of induced suicides for a while - actually, I have yet to write that portion of the story so please disregard that hint - but settled on the idea, once the man had been caught and all facts of the case had come to light, of Moriarty's incredible connections and wealth giving him access to hired personnel able to do the job efficiently and without struggle.

Sherlock, of course, listened to my theory and then proclaimed it wrong on all counts. His theory, which makes little sense to me, is that the victims died without a struggle simply because the murders were not the killer's purpose. His purpose was to gain attention - he wanted Sherlock on his case, ever since the consulting detective had been made aware that there was someone out there who matched him as a criminal. He did not expend undue effort on the killings. He just... killed them, and they went down without a fight. It was as if the fates themselves had decreed this was a sacrifice that would have to be made in order to force Sherlock and Moriarty to meet.

...And I'm veering wildly off-track into the realms of speculation. Perhaps we should return to the story.

* * *

"If only I could watch the death of the world." murmured Jim Moriarty, on the 16th of September at 6 a.m., just as he woke up. He was lying on a simple bed on the second floor of a prefabricated storehouse borrowed under the name of a dormant company on an industrial estate in the east side of town. It was just one of his many hidden lairs across the world, although if all went well he would not need to use it for much longer.

"John Watson. John Watson. Sherlock's hands, eyes and shield. Ahahaha! ...No, that's not right. There must be better types of laughs. Kuhuhuhu! ...No, not that one either. Kyahaha! Yes, that works."

Kyahaha.

Kyahaha.

Laughing wildly, Jim Moriarty got out of bed. It was a harsh laugh, a cruel laugh - but also an unnatural laugh, a phony laugh. Like laughing was just another task he had to do.

He remembered how he had attacked John Watson three days ago, in the alley. The man had not left his house since then. Now, it was Saturday. The team investigating the third crime scene had broken off for the weekend. Therefore, John Watson would be there today. He would most likely find the message Jim Moriarty had placed there for him.

Then, he would attempt to prevent the fifth murder, the one that Jim Moriarty had set up for him.

That was good. For the plan to work, he needed to try.

Only then would the real game start.

"Sherlock Holmes... I wonder if he'll ever realise? Heh heh heh... no, Kyahaha... If he's a detective, I'm a criminal. If he's Batman, I'm the Joker. Hmm. Now, how should I..."

Still grinning, a forced hideous grin like he was trying to look overly evil, he rose off the bed and scuttled over to the pile of clothes lying in a heap. After all, it would be a big day today.

* * *

September 16th.

John Watson was in the south side of town, standing in front of the quaint townhouse where Jennifer Middleton had lived. She had been thirty-one, sharing the house with a husband, although she had no kids. John supposed it was a blessing. They wouldn't have to bear with the awful thought of having their mother done in by a madman.

Because that's what this person was - a madman. The very way that Jennifer's corpse had been mutilated was grotesque enough to give John chills, and he had seen some truly horrific things in his time. Compared with this, cuts on a chest or smashed eyeballs were nothing.

The body was lying on its back, and the left arm and right leg had been chopped off at the root. There was blood everywhere, all over the crime scene. It had taken the investigative department days to clear it all up.

John was looking at the photos, horrifyingly fascinated by the body, his eyes drawn to the dark red sinews where the bone had been hacked away.

"They found the right leg abandoned in the bathroom, but they still don't know where the left arm is... presumably the killer, whoever he was, took it with them. But why?" He muttered to himself. Truth be told, he was mustering up the courage to go in. The scene had been cleaned, but the pictures taken had burned themselves into his head and scared him a little.

A few minutes later, and John was surprisingly relieved at the distinct lack of blood. The pictures of the scene Sherlock had procured were far, far worse than the actual thing now that it had been cleaned up. Silently, he thanked whomever had decided that he couldn't enter the scene before the blood was all gone. Three days earlier, it would have been far, far worse - he was quite sure of that.

The bedroom Jennifer Middleton and her husband had lived in was on the second floor. Again, there was a thumb turn latch below the knob. Two holes in the walls - at this scene, two dolls had been used. It pretty much confirmed Sherlock's theory about the decreasing number, and that there would only be one more murder after this. One hole on the far wall, directly across from the door, and one on the left-hand wall.

The room was sparse, but quite ornate. Whoever these two people had been, they had quite a fascination with foreign culture. John couldn't quite tell what civilisation the golden pattern on the ceiling was, but it looked Eastern Orthodox. Maybe. There was a set of matryoshka dolls in a similar style, which was what he based the guess on.

Of course, while the room had been cleaned, it still smelt faintly of blood. That rather destroyed the effect of the decor.

"I wonder where Adam is..." He didn't want to admit it, but he didn't think he'd be able to figure out anything at all without the other man's help. He glanced down at his wristwatch. It was nearly two o'clock. They had been supposed to meet at one-thirty. He'd been a little late, and wondered for just a minute if Adam had given up and gone home. It didn't seem that likely. Maybe he got bored easily?

"So, the killer needed to to cut off the left arm, but didn't take the right leg with him. He just tossed it into the bathroom." He was thinking aloud now, going in circles without the faintest idea how to come up with any brilliant deductions.

Then, of course, his phone rang.

"Hello? ...Sherlock?" He dropped his voice so he was less likely to be overheard.

"Yes. I will speak briefly. I have accessed the records on what you requested me to."

"Er, thanks." John had asked him to look up Adam Young's name in whatever databases he had. Only three days ago. For a detective, he guessed that was pretty fast work - the information was probably top-secret. "So, did you find anything?"

"There is no private detective named Adam Young in the United Kingdom."

"So he's unlicensed?" An unprivate detective. He had said so himself.

"Obviously. There are, of course, records of people named Adam Young - in fact there are more than five hundred with that exact name in this country. However, I cannot identify any one person who is likely to be your friend. I agree with your hypothesis of an alias."

"Okay... so, what should I do about him?"

"At the moment, you should continue to work with him. If I am accurately reading the situation, he is helping decipher the messages. There is no reason to deny yourself that help for the sake of a naming controversy. That is all."

Click.

Someday, John was going to give Sherlock a lesson in the proper technique for saying goodbye on the phone. Somehow - even if he ended up speaking it to his mobile that wasn't transmitting because the other man (it was a man, right?) had hung up half way through.

He's expected the name to be fake ever since he had heard it, so he didn't really care... although it did raise the question of why he'd picked the name of a criminal. And, of course, the more worrying question of why the victims' parents had apparently hired a detective that didn't exist. It was like he was just doing this for the thrill. And that trait struck him to be rather like the trait of the killer they were trying to catch.

...Maybe clever people just did that sort of stuff?

He went over the facts one more time.

After figuring out the address, it had taken them a grand total of about ten seconds to work out the rest of the message. Obviously, the killer was going after JMs. The Middletons that lived at that address - well, they both had the same last name. Graham Middleton's first name did not begin with a J. Jennifer's did. There - they had found their target.

But, of course, they were talking with the formidable force of hindsight on their side. Without the fourth murder to provide the JM link, John knew they wouldn't have figured out the message. Besides that, by the time they had gone looking, they were far too late and the fourth murder had already happened.

He hoped they wouldn't be too late this time.

John spent another half hour in the house, scouring all the rooms (even the bathroom - the smell of blood was stronger and mixed with the stinging aroma of bleach) for the tiniest clue. He saw nothing out of the ordinary apart from one possible thing. The matryoshka doll set, which looked like it was meant to have twelve dolls in from the way it was set out, had two missing. It rattled when he shook it.

Beyond that, nothing - and Adam Young hadn't shown up. Even looking at the photographs of the body made little headway, but maybe that was because it was hard to objectively focus on a mutilated corpse. Just the right arm and left leg were left, a pool of blood surrounding the thing and it lying there looking like it had been chainsawed during a star-jump. The leg in the bathroom was also in a blood pool. He could see the jagged rips in skin that matched up. It was definitely this guy's leg.

...Interestingly enough, he noted that the clothes had been removed before the body was cut up, and then put back on again once it was finished. It was obvious - they hadn't been torn by the knife. The leg in the bathroom still had the sock and shoe on it.

Everything was exactly how it should have been, apart from the fact that the corpse had been hacked to pieces.

With nothing else to do, and no foreseeable way to make any breakthroughs, John gave up and called Sherlock. The phone rang six times, then stopped.

"Hello, you have reached the voicemail of" A static sound, then "Sher-lock Hol-mes" in a robotic voice. "Please leave a message after the beep."

"Uh, yeah, it's me, John Watson. I'm not sure when you'll get this, but-"

"Oh, I'm right here." He was getting used to the synthetic voice, but that didn't stop it startling him a little.

"O-oh, sorry. I thought the phone hadn't picked up..."

"It hadn't. I was listening in on the answer message to determine the caller. I could see that it was your phone, however it is possible that someone else was calling. I merely waited until more evidence appeared."

...Yeah. Sure. That was about the worst excuse John had ever heard. Either this guy was antisocial and terrified of telephones, or he hadn't been bothered to pick up in time.

"Anyway, I wanted to know if there's anything else about this scene that I should know. Or, I'm not sure, anything at all about the case. I'm... stuck."

"..." Stupid silence. If John didn't know better, he'd assume Sherlock was just doing it to mock him. Wait, scratch that. He was, wasn't he?

"Based on your current record, I would prefer it if you acted on your own for a while longer. In either case, make careful investigation of the scene over the next six days." Wait, six? "One other thing, John Watson, do take all precautions necessary to ensure your own safety. You are the only person I wish working on this case. I would very much dislike having to replace you."

He must be referring to the fight in the alley. For a little while, John was stunned. What had he done to make himself of such value to Sherlock? They had only spoken over the phone a few times. Maybe it was a casual announcement, something he was doing out of courtesy, but even so John found it hard to believe it was being applied to him.

"Oh, I wasn't hurt."

"I am aware. Take care not to place yourself in a situation in which you might be attacked. Avoid back alleys, deserted streets and other similar areas. Please stick to more crowded streets and busy areas."

"I'm fine." Annoyance was beginning to seep through. "I can take care of myself. And in case you didn't know, I'm carrying a gun with me at all times."

"You are?" Surprise.

"Yes, I am. I'm not supposed to, but I thought it was a good idea." Maybe he shouldn't have let that slip in his anger. He could get in trouble.

"I will... bear that in mind. However, no matter how confident you are, the situation may easily change if the assailant catches you with your guard down. Take all the precautions you can, please."

"Don't worry, I always do. Uh, Sherlock..." he trailed off, not sure how to ask.

"What is it, John?"

"I was wondering... if you've figured out the killer's goal?"

Silence.

"Yes. I believe I know his goal now. However, it is of no concern to you." Click.

* * *

It wasn't at all like Sherlock to not have a clue who, exactly, he was was why, in addition to working with me on the case, he had been using his connections, both above ground and in the underworld, to identify the person targeting him.

He didn't find anything. This, of course, miffed him beyond words. Even going to Mycroft (who, I am told, accepted the request for information with nothing more than a smug 'I told you so' smile) hadn't yielded a thing. Whoever the murderer was, they were clearly doing a brilliant job of concealing their identity. That suggested a long-time criminal, rather than someone who had recently gone into hiding.

With no other source of information, he had turned to the case information. JM. That was the only link that seemed relevant. Could it be that the killers' initials were also JM? Armed with this, he searched again. Still nothing. It was as is the database was just doing it to spite him.

With nothing else to work on, since he wasn't supposed to go anywhere near the scenes and Mycroft had put another tail on him during this three-day hiatus to make sure of it, he looked through the database of any likely victims.

Whoever the killer was, for their last murder they would really want to murder someone special. End on a high point, as it were.

I wondered back then, completely unaware of what was going on, why I was suddenly being urged to be extra cautious. It seems that I had forgotten my own name. John Watson.

After all, wouldn't it make sense, as a last hurrah, for the final killing to be one of the investigators of the case?


	6. Four is Death

Adam Young finally reached the townhouse that was the third scene's location at just past three o'clock.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." He didn't seem the least guilty about showing up more than an hour late.

"Oh, don't worry, I wasn't waiting. I started without you." Any attempt John might have made to sound superior or offended, and he was left in an awkward silence with the other man. Adam blinked.

"I see." He slipped past John in the doorway and into the house. "Would you like me to make some tea?"

"No! I'll make it!" There was no way in the seventh circle of hell he was ever going to fall for that one again.

Two cups of tea later (both made with a normal amount of sugar - that was, none for him and just one spoonful for Adam), John made his way up to the first floor from the kitchen. He noted for the first time with astonishment that the tremor in his hand was all but gone, and then approached the door of Jennifer Middleton's room.

He was holding the tray in both hands, making opening the door rather tricky. It was not locked, of course, but he still had to turn the handle. Since said handle was at waist height, he ended up somewhat balancing the tray on it while he turned it.

He found Adam Young sitting in the middle of the room, flat on his back, with arms and legs flung out to the sides., staring blankly at the ceiling.

After the briefest flash of panic, John realised that he was, in fact breathing, and had apparently decided it was a good idea to take a nap, or something.

"Did you find anything?" he asked, somewhat sarcastically. Oh god. He wasn't going to start scuttling around on the floor, was he? John had had more than enough of that at the first scene.

"..."

"Adam?"

"I'm a corpse."

"...What?"

"I have become a corpse. I cannot answer. I am dead."

He understood. The word understand has a certain connotation of acceptance, which he dearly wished to avoid, but it seemed clear that Adam had adopted the same pose that Jennifer had been found in. Plus a couple of limbs, of course. From a practical standpoint, John couldn't see any point to the behaviour, but he wasn't the kind of person to interfere in stuff like this. Instead, he tried to figure out if, on the way to the desk, he should step over Adam or go around. John didn't want to step over him, but it would be irritating to go around.

"...Hmm?"

Then, he noticed something. At least, he noticed that he had noticed something. But what was it? Something had caught his eye, from the moment he had opened the door, but it had been overwhelmed by seeing what he had thought for a split second was a dead body. What was it? What would he have seen had Adam not been lying there? Nothing. The room would be ordinary... the only thing out of place would be...

"The mark left by the doll..."

It was just a hole, and hard to make out from the other side of the room. But what if it had been not a hole, but a doll? It would be the first thing to catch his eye upon entering the room. It had been carefully nailed in that exact spot, directly across from the door. The moment he opened the door, he would see the doll... the dolls were all at the same height (waist height, on him at least) but the distance from the walls on either side varied. However, at each of the locations, when you opened the door...

A hole.

"Excuse me." Still holding the coffee tray, he stepped over Adam. Of course, being distracted, he promptly tripped over one of his arms and accidentally stamped on his stomach. As he tried to avoid dropping the tray, he slipped and ended up on his knees desperately keeping the tray up while doing the splits. And, you know, putting nearly all his weight on Adam's abdomen.

"Gah!" said the corpse. Naturally.

"S-sorry!" By some miracle of nature, the tea had not spilled a drop. He set the tray down and then stood up as quickly as possible. Going around this time, he made his way over to the other side of the room to study the hole.

"What is it, John?" Adam Young may have been an impossibly weird freak of a guy, but even he didn't go so far as to rejoice at the pain of being trod on. He stopped pretending to be a corpse, rolled over, and crawled towards him.

"When we investigated the scenes, the police had already taken the dolls away, so I never really noticed before, but there's a trend in where they're placed. When you open the door to the room, the first thing you see is a doll. In all three rooms."

"Oh, yes." Adam said, nodding. "That's certainly true for this room and the two others. But John, what does that mean?"

"Er... um..."

What did it mean? It felt like a major discovery after hours of getting nowhere, but now that he thought about it he didn't have an answer. Awkward. So, he made something up.

"Well, it might have something to do with the locked rooms?"

"How so?" Adam's gaze was fixed upon him now, expression almost wide-eyed. It looked like he was expecting something good.

"Well... at all three scenes, the person discovered the body by unlocking the door with a spare key or breaking it down. They all came in and saw the creepy doll on the wall. Maybe, while they were focusing on the doll, the killer slipped out from behind the door and left without being noticed?"

It had sounded lame in his head. It was even lamer spoken out loud.

"Hmm. That is a rather classic trick. Like the needle and thread. However, as I have stated before, this is not a mystery novel. Also, think about it. If you wanted to focus attention, you would not need the doll."

"Why?"

"If there was no doll, then the first thing an entrant would see is a dead body. That, I believe, if a better concentrator of attention than a stuffed toy."

"Right. Of course. So, did he want whomever found it to see something besides the body first? Even for a second or two... but what would be the point? There's no reason I can think of to do that. Is it simply a coincidence?"

"I doubt it is a coincidence. The killer planned all these murders in advance; he had likely chosen all four victims before even sending the crossword. A person that finicky would not have this come about by chance. However, approaching it from this perspective seems ineffective. I would prefer... I think we should concentrate on the message the killer left behind."

"But... no, no, you're right." He almost argued but gave up at the last second. There wasn't much point in pursuing a dead end. "Sorry for wasting time."

"I would rather you apologised for stepping on me."

"Oh! Uh, sorry about that too." He'd forgotten.

"You mean it? Then, as a token of penance, would you do something for me?"

"...Okay?" John had stepped on him, after all. He wasn't that lightweight. "What?"

"Would you pretend to be dead, John? Like I was a moment ago. It is rather hard to gain insight from looking at an actual corpse when you yourself are modelling it."

Well, there went any hope of a request that didn't require a complete trashing of his self respect. Nevertheless, the matter was important - they did not know when the next murder would be committed, so it was urgent too - and by this point he had simply lost most of his ability to care.

Feeling oddly resigned, he lay down on the floor and closed his eyes.

"Anything?"

"No." came the reply from above him.

"...Can I get up now?"

"If you wish." Futile. He got up.

Adam was sitting back on the bed sipping tea. He pointed out that John's drink would go cold if he did not start it soon, and drank his. John hadn't put anywhere near as much sugar in, and half expected him to spit it out in frustration (it would have been a rather good example of justice being done) but he didn't say anything. Apparently, he was capable of consuming the same foodstuffs as a normal human being. It rather made John wonder if the cup prepared for him before really was done out of spite.

"Whew. A nice hot drink helps the pain in my belly." Adam seemed nonchalant, but he just wouldn't let that go, would he?

Time to focus back on the case. Voodoo dolls... voodoo dolls... he'd been onto something there.

"Adam? Have you thought any more about the dolls?" John watched his eyes flick to the matryoshka set and actual confusion flash across his face. He treasured the moment and stored it away for later. "You know, the ones on the walls."

"Hmm? Not much, but a little. Do you have any insights to share, John?"

"Oh, not really, I was just wondering why there were four of them."

Adam Young frowned.

"Have you really not deduced the significance in that fact? I would have thought it rather obvious. Four, three, two - it obviously denotes the crime scene number and also tells the police the number of murders our killer is willing to commit."

"But he killed two people at the second scene."

"Doesn't count." No hesitation whatsoever. "It was one crime scene, and their last names joined together. Plus, as children they only count as half each."

"But why? Why four, then? Did he just pick a number? He had to have all this planned out in advance." Adam nodded.

"Of course it was planned. As for four, either it was simply the number of walls in a rectangular room for nailing dolls on, or... well, our killer seems to have an obsession with the number."

"What makes you say that?" John thought back for anything relating to the number four. It had been four days between the first and second murders, but he failed to see how that had relevance.

"Many things. Among them, the dates of each murder. Do you remember them, John Watson?"

God, he felt like he was being tested again. Like his question about the dolls had caused Adam Young to revise down his estimates for John's intelligence.

"Thirty-first of August, fourth of September, thirteenth of September. A gap of four days and nine days." He had already memorised it, because he thought the info would come in handy. Turns out, he was right.

"Exactly. However, there is one more date of significance. The twenty-second of August, when the crossword puzzle was sent. That was the day the whole escapade began."

22, 31, 04, 13. Nine days, four days, nine days. Alternating.

"Are you saying that the next murder is going to happen on the 17th, four days after this one did? That's tomorrow! What the heck? You can't just keep that sort of thing to yourself!"

"No. The gaps between the days are not important. The dates themselves, however, are. Do you know about digital roots, John Watson?"

"No." Although, what with all this build-up, he guessed it would be important.

"The digital root of a number is the single-digit number obtained by adding up the digits of that number, and subsequently repeating this until only one digit remains. In base-10 it is used to denote the last digit of the same number in base-9." Aaaand that went right over his head. Adam saw his confusion - it was probably pretty clear on his face - and elaborated. "Take the number thirteen. The two digits are one and three, which add to make four, so the digital root of thirteen is four. If you subtract a number's digital root from it, you will end up with a multiple of nine. This is the reason for the three and nine division rules everyone learns in school. If the digital root of a number is three, it is three more than a multiple of nine and therefore also divisible by three."

"What relevance does that ha- oh, the dates."

Twenty-second. Two plus two equals four.

Thirty-first. Digital root four.

Fourth, thirteenth. Same thing.

"Are you sure this is correct? I think the alternating theory is also pretty likely, and we can't just gamble around with people's lives like this."

"Positive, John Watson. Think of it this way - there are four days each month with the digital root of four; some months only have three. It cannot be coincidence that an event significant to the killings happened on all of them, and on no other date. Also, this killer does not alternate. He varies his methods, yes," If you could call trying out progressively more inhumane execution types 'varying methods', "but he does not alternate. It would be out of step for him to do so."

When it was put like that, John couldn't help but be convinced. He felt the tight knot of stress begin to unwind a little. They had six days, not just one. They could do this.

Then a thought struck him.

"Why four, though?"

"Possibly personal reasons. However, it's more likely when combined with the voodoo dolls that it is a symbolic number chosen for the purpose."

"Why?"

"Because four is death." When put so simply, so succinctly, it sent chills through John's body. Four is death. It was an assertion, a mere statement of fact. This killer... he was inhuman. He wasn't killing for greed or revenge. In fact, he had no motive at all, beyond the fact that he wanted to play a game. Four is death.

As for figuring out the third scene's message? John decided to start with the one thing that was out of order. The dolls.

Not the voodoo dolls, but the matryoshka doll set he had noticed when scouring the house earlier. Just to check, he shook it. It rattled. He closed his eyes, thinking it might help.

"Dolls... two of them are missing... why two? And why are they missing?"

"That question again?"

John jolted in shock as Adam's voice spoke from right behind where he was standing. He spun around, still holding the matryoshka in his hands.

"Please don't do that! You... startled me." Adam just stared blankly at him. "What?"

"If you would prefer me to announce my presence, then I shall do so next time. Meanwhile, is that example simply another repetition of 'something that should be here, but is not'?"

"Yeah... I think it's probably important, but I can't think how."

"That means we are probably solving this message in the wrong order. Perhaps we should investigate the body more. After all, at the other scenes the body was meant to be the first clue." It was a good suggestion.

"Okay. So, what's weird about the body? Apart from, you know... Why does it still have clothes on?"

"John, I'm sure you know that it is easier to cut up a body without the clothes getting in the way. They are too sturdy and tangle up on the blade." He knew this well - as a doctor, he had to remove clothing before operating, often using trauma shears."

"Yes. But why not just leave them off? The first body was like that too..." Of course, he knew the answer. From the looks of it, Adam knew it too. "It's so everything else is put back exactly as is."

"I agree. The message must have nothing to do with the clothes or shoes, but only to do with the severed limbs."

But then. If it was just the severing, why carry off the left arm and leave the right leg? What was different between the two? John looked up at the ceiling, muttering under his breath. Adam looked up, too.

"Once, on a different case, something happened that might help. Do you want to hear it?"

"Go ahead."

"It was a murder case, and the victim had been stabbed through the chest. Afterward, the ring finger of his left hand had been cut off and carried away. Can you guess why?"

"Ring finger?" John thought for a second. The answer was pretty easy. "The victim was married, right? He'd been wearing a ring for so long he could no longer get it off. The killer cut off the finger to steal the ring."

"Yes. We were able to track it down on the black market and apprehend the killer that way."

"Well, that's interesting, but I don't think it works here. Nobody would cut off an entire arm to steal a ring." Probably. Who knows what went on in their adversary's twisted mind.

"You are correct. However, something besides a ring?" What else? Was there some kind of bracelet they would have to track down? Not around the finger, but around the wrist...

No, that didn't work. It made no sense to cut off an arm to get a bracelet. Did it?

John stretched out his left arm in front of him and looked at it. He opened his hand and splayed his fingers apart.

Nothing on the fingers, obviously - he wasn't married - but he was wearing a wristwatch. On his left arm - like most people probably did.

"Was Jennifer Middleton right or left handed?"

"According to the file? Right-handed."

"So she would have worn a watch on her left arm. The right leg still had a sock and shoe, so the left arm probably still had a watch."

"But why cut off the arm? Watches are not like rings. They do not get stuck, John."

"No, and I don't think he's even after the watch. But maybe that's the message? If only the watch was missing it would be too obvious, so he took the arm too..."

"As a form of misdirection? Regardless, we still do not know why he cut off the right leg too. Plus, even in the case of misdirection, there was no need to take the entire arm. The wrist would have been plenty."

True enough.

Even if the watch was the message, what was it supposed to convey? That they were running out of time? It sounded more like a mocking taunt than anything else. John felt like he was nearing the truth, but he wasn't there yet.

"Left arm, right leg, left wrist, right ankle, left hand, right foot, watch, clock, timepiece, ticker... both hands and feet, both arms and legs... or is it what's left behind that matters? Right arm, left leg... two limbs..."

"Three. Head counts too."

"Three. Third scene? Three limbs... neck, one leg, one arm..."

John was just stringing words together by now, spinning in circles like a lost child looking for its mother in a crowd. Except his mother was the answer, and he couldn't see her anywhere.

"If the left arm had to be one of them, why the right leg?"

"The head and arm and leg are all of different lengths..." For a moment, John didn't even register Adam's supposedly throwaway comment. He didn't know how that would fit in anywhere. But it was true - an arm was longer than a head and a leg was longer than an arm. But that wasn't going to guide him, was it? Compass needle?

"Needle? Or hands?"

"What about needles?"

"No, hands..." The locked room trick with the needle and thread had nothing to do with this, did it? But hands... could that be...

"A clock! Clock hands! The hour hand, minute hand and second hand are all of different lengths!"

John took out the photographs of the body again. This time, he knew what he was looking for. He laid it out on the floor.

"He's taken away the watch... and given us a clock instead. The whole victim is a clock. That's why the right leg had to be cut. A clock has three hands, not four."

"The victim... is a clock?" In contrast to John's own excitement, Adam's eyes were calm. As if he had expected this. "By clock, you mean..."

"The head is the hour hand, the arm is the minute hand, and the leg is the second hand! That's why he cut them off at the root - he needed three hands!"

John let all that out in one breath, then kneeled down on the floor to get a better look at the picture. The corpse was on her back, arm and leg spread out...

"Look. It's showing us a time. 11:55 and twenty seconds."

"Mmm. When you put it that way..."

"When you put it that way? It's obviously the message he left behind! And he tossed the leg into the bathroom because it was only the arm he needed to take away, and he wanted to emphasise that!"

"..."

Adam fell silent, apparently thinking.

"Let me see that." He snatched the picture from the floor and John watched him pore over it, turning his head at all sorts of strange angles. He began to wonder if his theory was completely made-up, and completely wrong after all. If it was baseless coincidence, then he'd have failed.

"John."

"Yes?" He braced himself for the remark.

"Assuming it is correct... which I think is likely... from this picture, there is no way to tell which time is represented."

"Huh?"

"I mean, look." Adam held out the picture. Upside down.

"This way, it's 5:25 and fifty seconds. Or like this..." He turned it sideways. "2:15 and 35 seconds. And if you turn it 90 degrees again, 8:40 and five seconds."

"...Oh."

He was right, of course. The picture was taken with the body vertically, so John had just assumed that the head - the hour hand - was pointing up. But really, there were infinite possibilities. Or at least 360. The hands might not move, but the numbers could be placed anywhere around them.

There was no clue indicating how to place the numbers.

Or was there?

"The dolls!" John suddenly exclaimed. "Twelve of them! Well, ten..."

He picked up the set of matryoshka and, one by one, took them out. He lined them up in order of size.

As he had seen before, there were two large size gaps between the ten dolls. Indicating that two were gone. Ten plus two was twelve. Somehow, they had to represent the numbers. Somehow.

"If the victim represents the hands, these have to be the numbers. After all, they were the only thing out of place. The part is... how?"

Adam picked up the smallest doll - painted like a baby, and barely larger than a finger joint - and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger.

"I would have to assume that the smallest doll somehow represents the number one. With that logic, the largest doll is number twelve, and the dolls must be spread around the body clockwise in order of increasing size. The question is, where do we start?"

"I don't know. Don't look at me!" John broke off the look they were sharing which had suddenly turned into a staring contest. "Clockwise increasing size... I swear I've heard that before. No, not quite that..."

What was it?

The thought hung just out of reach of his grasping brain.

"Clockwise... no, anticlockwise. Getting smaller anticlockwise..."

His mind flashed back. Way, way back to the first scene. Before he had even met Adam Young. Back when he had been talking to Sherlock on the phone.

_"The largest doll was on the right side of the room, as you come in through the doorway. From there, the dolls decrease in size as you go anticlockwise around the room. The pattern is the same at the second murder site, except the doll above the door is missing."_

The voodoo dolls did the same thing. And here, at this scene, there were two of them. Two gaps.

"I got it, Adam."

This time he was calm.

This time he did not get worked up.

"The gaps are the dolls nailed to the walls. Look? There's a gap at doll number three, and another at number six." He picked up the matryoshka and started to place them, one by one, around the picture of the body, which had been laid out to match the real body's position.

Smallest first, then getting bigger. Forming the shape of a circle with two breaks, both of which lined up exactly with the nail-holes. When it was done, he stood up and looked at his creation. He moved around to the nail hole on the left wall, looking at the clock from the right way up. The six gap was right in front of him.

"2:10 and 35 seconds."


	7. Needle and Thread

At last. September 22nd.

The day that Jim Moriarty was to be arrested, and apprehended... but we only know that now because history tells it to us, and like all historical events it was a lot less clear cut when I was in the thick of it back then. In fact, my - sorry, John's, I'm not very good with the switching points of view - day started with any number of inconsistencies and anxieties.

* * *

Two hours, ten minutes and thirty-five seconds.

They had managed to read that at the message left behind at the third crime scene, but was that Two in the morning, or afternoon? After they had solved the clock puzzle, John had searched the scene late into the evening looking for anything that might indicate "a.m." or "p.m.". He found nothing.

"If we've looked this hard and not found anything, then maybe it doesn't really matter." Adam suggested. "He made the victim into an analogue clock rather than a digital one, so trying to find something to indicate a.m. or p.m. might just be a waste of time."

"Yeah..." John agreed, starting to feel kind of tired from all this fruitless looking for something that didn't seem to be there.

Regardless of whether that was true or not, they had to assume it was. John began to decipher the message both as 02:10:35 and 14:10:35. The first scene had pointed them to a name, and the second one to an address, so what was the third one pointing towards? It seemed like the killer was zooming out with his focus each time. What could six numbers represent, anyway?

It was Adam who first came up with a viable solution. He had acted on a hunch left over from the second scene and turned the numbers upside down looking for clues.

SE10HI. A postcode in London. Specifically, pointing to Southwark Street. A scan through the Yellow Pages indicated that a man named Jeremy Myers listed his home address as 44 Southwark St. The initials matched, as did the house number. It seemed too convenient to be a coincidence.

"It must be him." John said. The postcode SE10ZO had turned up nothing of any use. He'd been worried about the a.m./p.m. thing, afraid they'd missed some vital clue in deciphering the message, but even if they had they had managed to make up for it. Now that they'd found the answer, he was enormously relieved. As Adam had said, the clock was analogue, so it didn't really matter.

However, Adam wasn't looking cheerful. Not that he ever did, but even so he seemed particularly down.

"Is there something wrong? We've got the victim and the date. We can finally get ahead of the killer! We could lay a trap for him, prevent the fourth murder and if we're lucky, catch the killer too. Nah - no luck about it. We can definitely do this. Catch him, and catch him alive... you don't seem convinced."

"John." A deflated, defeated tone of voice. The voice of someone facing a problem they didn't know how to work out. "The thing is, the postcode covers other houses as well. There is another potential victim. Jasmine Ward, living in 42 Southwark Street. We can't know which one it is."

"Oh..."

Two people with targetable initials, living in the same street. It wasn't impossible, not by any stretch of reasoning. After all, people didn't live alone - in London, though the houses were terraced and small, it was not uncommon to find five or six people living in each one. The postcode covered enough houses for two matches to be comprehensible, even statistically reasonable.

"But," John countered, "no matter how you look at it, there's the address. Forty-four. You said yourself about this killer's obsession with the number four. The fourth crime scene... and the last, judging by the number of dolls. What better location could the killer ask for?"

"I suppose..."

"I'm sure of it. I mean, come one, the other name isn't even JM. It's just a substitute. You yourself said this killer doesn't want to alternate. Why would he choose another JW?"

Certainly, it would be viable as a target had it not been for the much more obvious one living two doors down. The killer had probably scoured the city for a JM living in house number 44 and been forced to take the one that was offered to him. John was sure it would be Jeremy Myers. Adam, however, apparently wasn't.

"Remember, John. The postcode was obtained from us turning the number upside down. If we had to turn the number upside down to get to the victim, then it makes sense for the victim to be upside down as well, hence the JW."

"Well..."

As a theory, it matched up. Even though flipping something in a mirror was not the same as turning it upside down, it was true that doing either to an M would leave you with a W.

"If it had been another JM living in one of the houses, or two children with the initials JN, then I would agree with you completely... more than completely, in fact. But since the message this time was upside down, we can't ignore people with upside down initials."

"Yeah... I suppose I agree."

When it was put that way, John Watson didn't know what to think. They hadn't been able to decide whether the clock was a.m. or p.m., and now that they'd found a good candidate for the final murder scene, there were two potential victims... all this work, and the final piece was stubbornly refusing to fall into place. It bothered him. He was fairly sure they had interpreted the numbers correctly, but doubts remained still. There was every chance this would lead to a decisive and terrible mistake...

"Oh well," Adam said. "We'll just have to split up. Fortunately, John, we have each other."

They might be working together, but nothing further.

But this was not the time to point that out.

(It was around this time that I had the first stirrings of anxiety, and a sensation that something had begun to go horribly, horribly wrong.)

"One of us should wait at each of the scenes. Why don't you take number 42, and I take number 44. After all, that would mean that the initials match up, John Watson. It seems the more natural arrangement of the two."

"...And do what, exactly?"

"Just as you said earlier. We'll lie in wait for the killer on the 22nd, six," Adam checked his watch, seeing it was already past midnight, "No, five days from now. Before that, we should speak to both Jeremy Myers and Jasmine Ward, and secure their cooperation in our investigation. Obviously, it would be unhelpful to tell them they are being targeted by a serial killer, as if the media find out the plan would be compromised."

"But, don't they have a right to know?"

"They have a right to live, which is arguably more important. We will pay them money to vacate for a day, and borrow their houses."

"Pay." It just sounded so... mundane.

"Yes. The simplest means. Fortunately, my patrons are providing me with expense funds deep enough to cover the charges. If the crime is solved or a murder is prevented, they will be only too happy to reimburse me in full. If this were an ordinary murder, it wouldn't work, but since there two are being targeted only because of their initials, there is no reason for anyone to have to die. So if we pretend to be them, and wait in their their rooms... we ought to be able to meet the killer. Obviously, we should put the two up in a safe place all day on the 22nd. A four-star hotel would be adequate."

"And then we... I see." John clutched his walking cane for a moment, thinking. Buying the potential victims' cooperation seemed okay... it wasn't that unethical if it saved them from unnecessary danger. He didn't know who the patron was backing Adam, but he guessed that if he talked to Sherlock he could probably get enough funds to cover his share of the expenses. Adam Young - no, that wasn't his real name, what was it? - would become Jeremy Myers, and he, John Watson, would become Jasmine Ward.

"And we shouldn't call for police backup?"

"I find that the police around here seem to have... issues... working with me. Plus, while we would undoubtedly protect the victims' lives, the scale of the operation would alert the killer and he would be more likely to escape. And our deductions are not proof enough to mobilise the police anyway. Our reading of the killer's message, however accurate you and I know it to be, is simply rootless speculation to them."

"Rootless."

"With nothing to support it."

"..." John was pretty sure there was a different word for that. However, he had a point.

If he called Sherlock and asked for extra backup... no, that wouldn't work. After all, the man had already outsourced the job of investigating to a total stranger, so there was no reason at all to think that he'd have people handy.

And then, if he asked any of his army colleagues to help him catch a serial killer because he'd read their message, he'd probably be laughed out of the Solar System, let alone off the face of the earth.

"The killer is working alone, I suppose, but when it comes to arresting him there will be a struggle."

"Don't worry. I can take him one on one. You too are physically fit. And you carry a gun, right?"

"Yes..." How had-

"Can you use it?"

"Eh? Yes."

"Make sure it is easily accessible. You ought to be armed. This has moved from a match of wits into a game where our very lives are on the line. You should be ready for anything, John."

* * *

And so...

With any number of inconsistencies and anxieties, John went home in the early hours of the 17th and got a sparse five hours of sleep. That morning, he called Sherlock and explained the situation before asking for financial backing, as well as checking to see if he had uncovered any more evidence that might be useful. He wondered if Sherlock would tell him that lying in wait was too dangerous, that they should make the safety of the would-be victims their first probability and call the police before things got out of hand. He wondered whether Sherlock would oppose the strategy suggested by Adam (as part of John had hoped he would) but Sherlock seemed quite in favour of it. John asked him two or three times whether he could really trust the other man, and each time received a sort of half-confirmation and a request to let him proceed, as it would do no harm. But of course, in a few days, everything would come to a head...

"Please, John Watson," Sherlock said. "Whatever you do, please catch the killer."

Whatever you do.

Whatever.

"...Understood."

"Thank you. Additionally, while we are unable to secure help from the police, I will be requesting a favour from an... acquaintance... of mine, to provide us with some private backup. I plan to station a few individuals in discrete positions around the street. If they see anyone entering either of the two houses, they will activate. Of course, they will keep their distance, but..."

"Sounds good."

All that day, he couldn't stop himself from thinking about the case. It was Sunday, so most people would be taking a day off and relaxing. He couldn't bring himself to. The facts were all flying around his head, and he couldn't help but be struck by the fear that he'd missed something very important.

And, of course...

"How did Adam know I was carrying a gun? I never showed it to him..."

It was just one more question he didn't know the answer to. How could he have known?

And so, with any number of inconsistencies and anxieties, and one single slip-up that lead to a significant failure... the story's climax arrives.

* * *

Case study.

I had originally planned not to tell anyone the reason I was sent home from Afghanistan. After all, it's a rather private matter to me, and though my therapist always tells me writing about it would help me face up to the reality of it, I had always ducked out. I've had requests for it before, but I've always ignored or avoided them, because I've been reluctant to revisit those memories.

Not this time, though; it is important so that you readers can understand this story. I've spent so much time writing this, and I'm not going to let a bad memory get in my way now. I've avoided any specific mention of it up till now, but I can't properly describe the look on my face that morning when I was staring at my gun and my mind was flashing back.

It's not terribly complicated. I was, as I'm sure most of you know, a doctor in the army. I saw a lot of very, very disturbing things. Normally, medics are kept out of combat and away from the line of fire, but the injuries the soldiers bring in are, in a way, far worse than being in the middle of the action and pumped full of adrenaline that allows you to just dismiss some of the horrors.

That said, on that particular occasion I was nearly killed. The soldiers had secured a building (or at least, they believed they had) and I went in to treat a comrade who had been wounded in the leg with a knife. Their femoral artery had not been punctured, thankfully, but the gash was deep all the same. It was too much of a risk to move him until he'd been bandaged up by somebody who really knew what they were doing.

I was shot in the leg while working on the injury. I of course had a combat soldier standing guard over me while I was working, but they could not protect me. The bullet hit bone, muscle and flesh, and exited the leg leaving two holes that both welled up with blood.

Another gunshot, and my patient suddenly had a hole in his chest right where the left lung was. The thoratic cavity had been punctured, and if that happens in combat you're basically screwed if you aren't gotten out of there right away.

My guard was already running to the source of the gunshots. I stayed by the fallen soldier's side, knowing that he was likely not going to make it and trying to give him what comfort I could. Behind me, I heard a commotion and looked around to see a kid, no older than fourteen, being dragged out of his hiding place. He was the one who had shot the gun. He was a dangerous criminal, and a deadly killer.

But the look in his eyes... like he was staring at something he couldn't believe was true, like the grim reaper itself was before him. Like it was absurd - he could kill other people, but he had never imagined the true consequences of his actions. He locked eyes with me for one second of agonising slowness, during which the whole world seemed to fall away into nothing...

...Then there was another gunshot and the child fell over dead, blood seeping from a gunshot wound from point blank range between his eyes.

The soldier who was guarding me was disciplined, of course. The merciless killing of a child was not something that was ever excused, not even in a combat zone. He got off relatively lightly, claiming he had acted in the heat of the moment having just witnessed the death of the man that I later learnt had been his best friend. He was dishonourably discharged, but not prosecuted.

I was sent back home due to the wound in my leg. It was worse than it had first appeared, having nicked the bone and splintered it slightly. It gave me a limp that I still feel twinges of to this day, although the wound healed fully ages ago.

But I never forgot the look on that kid's face. The worst thing was that I had already decided what I was going to do to him.

If I hadn't been beaten to it, I would have pulled out my gun and killed him too. Yes, I was angry. Yes, I was pumped up on adrenaline. But as I looked into the eyes that looked back at me with a terrified gaze, I had honestly, rationally planned to kill him right then and there.

I could have become a child murderer.

That was the last time I thought about using the gun before Sherlock sent me that email. Of course, I had tried to draw my gun when assaulted in the alleyway, but I hadn't used it. It was just for deterrence. At least, that's what I told myself at the time. If Jim Moriarty had called my bluff then, I'm not sure what I would have done.

So I hope everyone reading this blog understands the look I was giving my gun that morning, knowing full well that if the killer approached me in house number 42 I would have to use it.

* * *

"...What if the killer is a child?" John Watson murmured, despondently. "Thirteen... only thirteen..."

He put the gun down beside him, checking again to make sure the safety was on. Next to it were a pair of handcuffs, supplied by Adam, also intended for the killer.

He was in the main bedroom of 42 Southwark Street, where Jasmine Ward lived. It was a two bedroom house, but this was the only room with a thumb-turn lock. Going by the rules of the last three scenes, if the killer showed up it would be here.

Two houses down, in number 44, Adam was also watching and waiting for the killer to arrive, having taken Jeremy Myers' place. He had insisted he was strong enough to handle it, but he was so slim and scrawny-looking, like he hadn't eaten anything in days, that John found it hard to believe - he couldn't help worrying, just a little bit. Adam had seemed utterly confident when they met up to take their places, but... John had his doubts.

At this stage of affairs, John had absolutely no idea which room the killer would come to - this house, or the one two doors over? He'd been thinking over it almost every second he could spare, but hadn't reached a conclusion. No matter what theories he thought up, he couldn't eliminate either of the scenes as the possible target. And he was still a little bugged by the a.m./p.m. thing from the third scene... but there was little point in stressing out about that now.

He looked at the clock on the wall.

The digital display showed 9a.m. exactly. He watched the seconds tick by.

Nine hours worth of September 22nd had already gone. Only fifteen hours remained. He wasn't going to get any sleep today. He would have to remain awake for at least twenty-four hours, without either anything to eat or drink or a bathroom break. Adam had advised him not to stretch his patience thin or start daydreaming; he needed to be awake and alert, able to react the very instant that anyone entered the room.

But now it was time to call Sherlock again. He took his phone out of his bag and dialed the number with his right hand, closing the door and the curtains with his left.

Click. He turned the latch on the thumb-turn lock, sealing himself in and anyone else out. Just in case.

"Sherlock." John kept his voice a whisper, though he didn't really know why. It just seemed appropriate in the now darkened room. "Nothing's happened here yet. I phoned Adam earlier, and nothing happened on his end either. No signs of anything out of the ordinary. I'm starting to believe we're both going to be in it for the long haul."

"I see. Don't let your guard down, John. As I said before, backup is in position in the street but if anything happens they will not be close enough for an immediate response."

"I know."

"So, John..." Sherlock said. Wrapping up. Maybe he was getting the message that goodbyes were needed.

"Um... Sherlock?" He stammered out, then hesitated, not sure if he should ask this or not.

"Yes, what is it?"

"You... know the killer? Or, at least, his goal?" He didn't particularly want to bring it up again, but for some reason he had a nagging feeling that it was important. Very important.

There was a crackle over the synthesiser. Maybe it was a sigh.

"Yes. I have been unable to find out his name, but I know of him."

"Is it... personally?"

Sherlock had never said anything of the sort - indeed, he had told John that he didn't even know the killer's name. However, a few days before, Sherlock had told him something that had made him second-guess that.

_"Whatever you do, please catch the killer."_

John had a pretty good feeling that Sherlock, whoever he was, wouldn't say that about any old murderer. As for not knowing the name...

Well, he'd known 'Adam Young' for a while now, and still didn't have a clue who the guy's real name was. So it could be something like that.

"...In a way, yes." The synthetic voice agreed.

As if he'd not minded being asked at all, although John was pretty sure it was a sore spot for him.

"But, John, please keep that piece of information to yourself. It would not do for the ordinary police department to know that I now have a rivalry with a serial killer. I believe it would convince them that I am even more unstable than I already appear to them. They are better off not knowing."

"So was that why you chose me?" The question had bothered John ever since he learned that Sherlock did have access to backup.

"No. I chose you so I could have an agent I could trust one hundred percent. Whoever my rival is, he is sure to have contacts far and wide in all my usual places to recruit. He does nothing by halves, as I am sure you are aware by now."

Nothing by halves. Except, apparently, children with the last name Underwood. John would have laughed out loud except he didn't wish to explain the joke, and then explain why his sense of humour had taken a turn towards the morbid.

"There's one thing I wanted to ask."

"What?"

"You know the killer, but you have nothing to do with him?"

This was...

...this was about the same, in John's mind, as asking if you could pull the trigger on a thirteen-year-old child. If you could suspend your feelings towards them, whether they be compassion or hate, and simply, coldly and rationally do what is right. Something John didn't trust himself to do anymore.

"I have nothing to do with him." Sherlock said, the static crackling slightly on the voice-changer. "To be accurate, I do not even know him. He is simply a person I am aware of. However, this does not affect my judgement. Certainly, my connection to him was one of the things that drew me to investigate the case, but a far larger factor was simply the high difficulty level. It does not matter if I know him or not, John. What matters is justice, and the case."

"Justice... and the case... nothing else matters?"

"No. It is not a priority."

"So, it doesn't matter if it was your best friend, you'd still follow the course of justice?"

"Yes. Friendships are not a priority."

"But..."

Like a thirteen-year-old victim.

"There are people who justice cannot save."

Like a thirteen-year-old criminal.

"And there are people who evil can save." Surely, it isn't right to punish them for a choice they made that anyone else would have made?

"There are. But even so," Sherlock said, tone unchanging and flat. As if stating an unquestionable fact. "Justice has a greater power than evil, and that is what keeps me serving it."

"Power? ...you mean strength?" The whole government was behind Sherlock, even if not directly. Was that why he stayed on the side of good? For protection?

"No. I mean kindness."

He said it so easily. Like it was obvious.

John almost dropped the phone.

So that was why... being a criminal would be a tougher challenge, would be better for Sherlock in every way possible... it sounded like everyone expected him to switch sides at any moment...

But justice has more power than evil.

"I misunderstood you, Sherlock. Thank you."

"Did you? I am glad we resolved the issue. Oh, and I would like to say hello to whoever is monitoring this call. Pass the greeting onto Mycroft, would you please?"

"Wait, wha-"

Click.

...

* * *

John folded the phone and closed his eyes briefly, a tiny part of his brain staying alert to listen for any sounds, the rest of it curiously blank.

His head wasn't spinning with the revelation. None of his problems had been solved. But it strengthened his resolve, just a little bit, to know that Sherlock was on the side of justice. Not legal justice, the kind that would have decimated his life had he gone through with killing that child - but ethical justice, and trying to do the right thing in any situation.

Even if it meant bending the law a little.

It made him feel a bit better and not so horribly guilty about his split-second decision.

His therapist would be proud.

"...So, in one hour, I have to call Adam... I hope he's okay..." Truth be told, the other man had grown on him since they had first met less than a fortnight ago. Grown on him like some kind of saprotrophic fungus, yes, but grown on him all the same.

Jeremy Myers and Jasmine Ward. JM and JW. 44 and 42. Two possible targets, each equally valid. Really, wasn't there anything in the third scene that could have distinguished between them? He couldn't shake the idea.

A.M. or P.M.?

They hadn't been able to trim down all the possibilities. Not like at the second scene, or at the first...

"Oh... so that's why it was two?"

John had hit upon something. The reason why two names had been left at the first scene rather than just one. To eliminate the possibility of there being more than one target. He was willing to bet that there was more than one Jack Underwood in London, and more than one Jill underwood. Put them together, though, and it was unlikely you'd get two pairs of people with the right name. That type of message, pointing to the name rather than the place... it was bound to have some type of error, and having two victims was one way to eliminate that.

A pretty horrific way to deal with it, but then again this murderer obviously didn't care about things like that.

So, if the killer had taken precautions against this sort of thing happening with the second scene, why did the fourth scene have two possibilities? He had to be overlooking something... the final piece of the puzzle...

The crossword puzzle? He had, after all, never tried it.

...And now he thought about it, there were lots of things he hadn't tried, problems he had put off thinking about. Not just the 'which room' problem, but...

"The locked rooms. Did he really just have a key? And why, anyway? Why make it look like a suicide if it's clear it's not meant to be one?"

Could it be possible they were suicides? Had he talked to his victims beforehand, convincing them to kill themselves? Would that solve the problem of the locked room?

But how could a body damage itself after death? It couldn't.

So to leave a message, the killer needed to be alive and present after the victim was dead. So that ruled out suicides... didn't it? Was there some way it could work, or...

"Or... needle and thread... the locked room trick... but that can't be." It wasn't physically feasible.

And then there were, of course, the dolls.

John had been rather surprised to find that they had had a practical purpose with the clock at the third scene. Previously, they had just been a metaphor for the victims.

Four.

Three.

Two.

And now... One.

"I guess... the last one would be opposite the door? Seems the most significant place to put it... But why is it so significant? It's the first thing you see... catches your eye even before the body does..."

Without any clear idea of why he was doing it, John went over to stand next to the door. With a flick, he turned the switch, so the room was now open again. Surveying the place, he found no hints. It wasn't a crime scene. It was just an ordinary room, filled with the signs of Jasmine Ward's life.

"So, the dolls were always nailed at the same height, about waist height on me, and there was always one opposite the door, so the last one would be nailed..." He crouched down until he was at eye level with that spot on the opposite wall. "About the- ow!"

The back of his head whacked the doorknob. For a terrifying moment of panic he thought this meant someone had opened the door, but it turns out he had just lost his balance while trying to think too hard.

He could use a nicotine patch right about now. Maybe it would stop the throbbing in his head.

John turned around, absentmindedly rubbing the pain away with a hand, and...

His eyes saw the doorknob.

And, just beneath it, the thumb turn lock. The latch.

"!"

John let out a wordless exclamation and whipped round his head again, to stare at the wall where the doll would be. It was just patterned wallpaper, of course, but a doll nailed there would not be opposite the door.

It would be opposite the thumb-turn latch.

"Oh... how on earth didn't I notice that before?"

It seemed silly how, in all his searching, he had never before noticed that simple fact. But so what? What reason would there be to have that?

"..."

He was heading straight for an answer he should not be heading for.

He would reach an answer he should never reach.

At this rate...

...it was inevitable. He couldn't stop himself now. His mind was flying through the steps beyond his conscious control.

It would overturn, uproot everything he knew to be true, but he still couldn't stop it.

"But, if there's only one doll at the fourth scene, then that can't be it... proof by contradiction? Or... is something different this time? Needle and thread... needle and thread..."

The locked room trick. Used to make it look like the victim had committed suicide. But this time, the message was flipped...

...then, it wasn't going to make a suicide look like a murder; it never did. So what then?

What then?

And why had the message the killer had left ensured that they split up?

"...Ah."

Before this point, John had done incredibly little that Adam had not manipulated him into. Everything - all the way back to the bookshelf and games and the tic-tac-toe of the first scene - had all been planned, right down to the last tiny detail. Now that he thought about it, it was clear as day. The link between the names and the link between the dates had all been solved by him, not by John, and the notion that the third murder looked like a clock... well, Adam had led him to that conclusion from the moment he noticed the watch was missing. He had brought up the wedding ring; noted the arm, head and leg were of different lengths... John had been used, manipulated like a puppet on strings.

"...But how did he know about my gun? I only told Sherlock, and that... can't... no, wait..."

But now, at last.

John Watson figured something out.

Something incredibly, incredibly important.

"No... it can't be... no way... but..."

The reason why the killer had made them split up, the answer to the question that had been bothering him for days.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhh h!"

John let out a howl that cracked the air around him, snatched the handcuffs and gun from the bed, jumped to his feet, and burst out of the room.

* * *

**Okay, leave a review. Right now. I mean it - the next chapter is going up almost immediately and once you've read it you... well...**

**Plot twist incoming, that's all I'm gonna say. Seriously, review now before it's too late.**


	8. Fire is Death

John shot down the stairs faster than a flaming arrow. Wrenching open the front door, he ran out into the street. In his haste, he left his walking cane behind him. He'd forgotten about his limp.

Could he phone?

No, there wasn't time. He needed to get there now.

"Damn it... damn it... damn it, damn it, damn it! Why why why why... how could I have missed it? It's so god damn obvious!"

It irritated him. No, it pissed him off.

Wasn't the truth supposed to set you free? Weren't you supposed to feel better when you worked things out? But if this was how things really were, then...

John was running so fast he nearly overshot the house and had to brake hard. Panting, he tried the doorknob. It wouldn't open.

He fumbled around in his jacket for the key. Come on, come on, there wasn't time for this!

"Aieeee!"

Someone screamed. John jumped and whirled around, but it was just a woman in the street. She had seen John's gun having just come out of 43 Southwark Street on the other side of the road. Distracting! He turned back to the door, having at last fished the key out from his pocket.

The door opened and he darted in, slamming it behind him. Locking it again.

"Adam!" He yelled. There was no answer.

Where was it? Where was the bedroom?

He had thought the two houses would have the same layout, but one of them had obviously been redone at some point. The stairs weren't in the same place, and John tried three rooms before he found them.

He ran up.

On the landing, the first room - wrong! Nobody inside. Second room - wrong! A bathroom. Third room-

The door wouldn't open. It was a thumb turn lock.

"Adam!"

He knocked... no, the word isn't strong enough, he banged on the door. As if trying to break it down. But it was sturdy and it would not budge.

There was no answer from inside.

Once, twice, he punched the door without success. There was no way in, except...

John aimed the gun straight at the latch.

"I'm pulling the trigger!" He yelled in warning.

Once... Twice...

He shot the lock.

There was a small explosion of dust and splinters as the thumb-turn lock and the knob burst off. The crack echoed through the air as gunshots do, and he heard another scream from outside. John threw his shoulder into the door, and as he opened it there was one thing that first caught his attention.

A straw voodoo doll, nailed at waist height directly opposite the door.

And then...

He saw a man on fire, in the corner away from the door. Flames licked across his clothes and body as he flailed around, unable to stand the horrific burning pain.

Adam.

It was Adam Young - no, that wasn't his name. John knew that for certain now.

The fire was spreading to the room. A blast of heat struck his skin.

He smelled petrol.

Lethal injection, blunt head trauma, stabbing... and the final mode of death was fire!

John glanced at the ceiling - there was a sprinkler, but it wasn't functioning. It had obviously been tampered with. The smoke alarm was disabled too. John forced himself not to panic, and ran back out, sprinting down the stairs four steps at a time to find the thing he had seen on his way up.

A small red fire extinguisher hanging on the kitchen wall. Just... here! He grabbed it and ran back. He didn't stop to read instructions.

Back in the room, and the haze of heat was beginning to cloud with smoke. The desperate flailing had given way to jerking and twitching, trying to get away from the blaze.

Their eyes locked through the veil of flames. The heat was so intense, John could barely look at it.

And the look in the other man's eyes...

...like he was staring at something he couldn't believe was true, like the Grim Reaper itself was before him. Like it was absurd that John should be here, and his mind didn't comprehend. One second of agonising slowness, during which the whole world fell away and John's mind spiraled into the past and he was looking at that thirteen-year-old boy...

...and he made up his mind - calmly, rationally, knowing that this was unquestionably the right thing to do...

He shot him.

Not with the gun, of course - he pointed the end of the fire extinguisher at the burning red body and squeezed the trigger. White foam came spitting out, coating the room, far stronger than he had ever expected from such a small cannister. John almost lost his balance, staggering backwards with the force; he gritted his teeth and held on, not letting the jet of white spray move off the body.

How long did it take?

Ten seconds, maybe. But it felt like a thousand lifetimes. John thought the day might end before he stopped burning.

A hiss of air and steam filled the room, and John wanted to cough and hack from the smoke, and then... the fire was out.

The extinguisher was empty, and he no longer heard the crackle of flames on clothing and skin.

The white foam began to subside.

In front of him was a black, charred body. No, that was an understatement, trying to downplay it. A far better description would be a red-black mass of flesh, blood oozing through the cracks in the charcoal skin. It looked like the fire had burned all the way through.

The smell of petrol hung in the air, mixed with the acrid aroma of smoke and burning skin. John covered his nose, his eyes beginning to water. He glanced towards the window, wondering if he should open it. No... couldn't risk a backdraft. He was afraid that any sudden movements might cause horrific damage, more so than had already been done. Like the body would crack and wither in the slightest breeze.

He stepped towards Adam. He was curled up, on his side, in the fetal position. John knelt down beside him.

"Hey." he said, voice suddenly raw.

No answer. Was he dead? Had John been too late?

"Ah... uunh..."

"...hey."

He was alive.

Still alive.

He was burned all over and would need serious medical treatment including skin grafts for just about every place imaginable, but he was alive. This came as a relief.

He heard a sound behind him and turned round. There was someone there - the woman who had screamed when she saw John with the gun. She must have heard the gunshots and come to investigate.

"D-did something happen?"

John thought "What happened?" would clearly be a better question, but...

He pulled out his identification from his coat pocket.

"Army."

He identified himself as that. It would save time.

"Call the police, the fire department, and an ambulance."

The woman looked surprised, but nodded and left the room.

John wondered idly if she was part of the backup that had been hired. Since she had apparently got in even though the door was locked, he thought it likely.

He could worry about that later.

John kneeled down over Adam's body. Over the red and black charred corpse that was somehow hanging on.

And slowly took his wrist, still very hot, and checked his pulse. It fluttered and thrummed like a hummingbird's wing, driven faster and weaker by the soup of adrenaline and the terrible state he was in. He might be done for; he might not make it to the hospital; he might not even last until the ambulance arrived.

In which case.

John had something to tell him.

One last thing to do.

"Adam Young," he said, putting the handcuffs on the burnt-out wrist. "I arrest you on suspiscion of the murders of Jacob Merrivale, Jack Underwood, Jill Underwood, and Jennifer Middleton. You do not have the right to remain silent. You do not have the right to an attorney, and you do not have the right to a fair trial."

* * *

The London JM serial killer, Adam Young, Jim Moriarty...

Was in custody.


	9. Afterword

Nothing much left but the explanation.

There's quite a bit that I could write about here, but I'll settle for doing a quick summary of all the key points. Jim Moriarty's purpose with the murders was never the murders themselves – he had no grudge against any of his victims. So what was the purpose? There was only one.

He needed to challenge Sherlock, the one person that was on his level.

It was a matter of winning or losing.

...A contest, if you will.

However, in this case, what would mean Moriarty's victory? How could he possibly determine when Sherlock had lost? The man had no friends to hold hostage and his brother Mycroft was high enough up and paranoid enough to be unobtainable. Therefore, he had to beat Sherlock at his own game of solving mysteries.

In an ordinary detective war, whoever solved the crime first would win. Obviously, that wasn't what happened here. Moriarty developed the following theory.

If Sherlock could solve every case, no matter how challenging, then if Moriarty could create a case difficult enough that Sherlock could not solve it, then Moriarty would have won. That case was the London JM Homicides.

He knew from the moment he started murdering that Sherlock would notice. After all, the man kept up to date of all murders happening around London, and serial murders drew the eye more than most. Serial murders with children involved even more so. He could only guess at which stage of the plan Sherlock would become involved so he prepared very carefully, ready for an entrance at any point. When John showed up just before the third murder the timing was a little early, but workable – and Jim Moriarty had planned it out.

Of course, he had known Sherlock would not move himself. He had made sure of that by issuing a direct threat to Mycroft concerning Sherlock (something which Sherlock only found out after the case had been resolved, and was as I understand rather miffed about). He would have to choose a pawn to work for him; at most three, probably two, and if Moriarty was lucky only one. Moriarty was lucky. John Watson – honourably discharged from the army, an upstanding man of good character (if I do say so myself). Not easily bribable, although he did briefly consider using my sister Harriet as blackmail. However, that would violate the rules of the little game he had set up.

What really mattered is that I was only a man working for Sherlock, and not Sherlock myself. By having me at the crime scenes instead of him, Moriarty disrupted Sherlock's normal thought process and made it damn nigh impossible for him to work out the messages alone.

So he needed a catalyst, then; and who better than the killer himself?

Jim Moriarty approached me at the first crime scene, having chosen the alias of an infamous criminal – his choice suggests the strength of his decision, his willingness to go through at all costs. He was ready.

And, as Adam, he had played the fool; he had observed me, occasionally guiding me with unnoticed skill, leading me in an artful dance from the first scene to the third making sure I had gathered up all the clues and messages he had left behind. Well, not all of them (the ages of the victims springs to mind here, but that is no longer relevant), just enough to form the links. Compared to the challenges he had faced "persuading" the families of the victims to hire him and "persuading" them not to let up that anything was wrong, leading me was a walk in the park.

Incidentally, once you have brutally slaughtered one (or even two) members of a family it is far easier to keep them in line using threats of a repeat act than it is to bribe their mouths shut.

I had contacted Sherlock many times during my investigations, and each time I had asked I had received instructions to let the mysterious private detective Adam Young have free reign. This was a crucial step in the plan, and Moriarty had ensured it by using the crossword puzzle. If someone appeared out of the blue possessing a copy of a document like that, and had even solved the thing and deciphered the message, then Sherlock would have little choice but to take him seriously. Even though, in fact Adam had only possessed the crossword because he had made it in the first place.

I, as a person, was pretty much everything Moriarty had hoped for. Just like the moon is both light and dark and every coin has two sides, Adam could not solve the clues alone. What would be the point in doing that? He had given hints, and I had followed them through to their logical conclusions, sometimes with a little bit more coaxing needed, and sometimes skipping ahead and working things out before their time. For Moriarty's plan to work, all three scenes had clues that had to be deciphered but he could not be seen to solve too many himself. Adam Young could never appear as more than a suspicious private detective – not to be trusted, but not attracting too much attention.

As far as Jim Moriarty was concerned, the first four murders only served to set the stage for the main act – number five (or four, if you go by scene number). I had mused a while back on whether one murder was camouflage for another, but in reality they all were, disguising the truth behind the final murder.

At the third scene, the time on the clock had pointed to Southwark St, on which there resided a JM and a JW. Certainly, this wouldn't have been hard for Moriarty to find with the resources he had available to him. I wonder even now whether he changed the message after he knew that the person Sherlock was involving had targetable initials. Just to make the names line up.

After all, if there had been more than one investigator sent with me, he would have needed to point to a scene with three JMs. Maybe that was his default. I guess we'll never know.

John Watson as Jasmine Ward, and Jim Moriarty as Jeremy Myers. As Adam had said before, it made the initials match.

Then he attempted suicide.

Turned the thumb lock by hand, nailed a voodoo doll to the wall, broke the sprinkler system, turned off the smoke alarm, poured petrol all over himself, struck a match, and lit himself on fire.

He had chosen himself as the fourth victim. Jim Moriarty, the final JM. Adam Young as a fake name was obvious – once the body turned up, Sherlock would be forced to investigate further. He would find the real name as Jim Moriarty, a name more than acceptable as the final victim, and a highly appropriate end for an investigator.

And wouldn't it make perfect sense, as a last hurrah, for the final killing to be an investigator of the case? Sherlock had even already considered that when he had taken note of my initials and warned me to be extra careful.

Immolation. Burning to death. About the most painful end possible for a person. Not a suicide method that any sane person would choose – which is why he chose it, of course.

His face and fingerprints would burn as well, rendering the body unsearchable in the criminal database. Even if Sherlock asked around, he would have no picture to refer to, and my testimony wouldn't be precise enough. Jim Moriarty would only be found through his links as a private detective hired by the victims' families, links that he had carefully instructed to lead to a false persona with his real name.

The reason he had changed the methods of death at the scenes, going from injection to blunt force trauma to stabbing was partly out of curiosity, but far more importantly to make it seem natural that the fourth victim was done with fire. There was the matter of the post-mortem injuries done to the other bodies; even Jim Moriarty could not damage his own body after death. Such an obvious discrepancy would not do. With a burned body, however, it would be impossible to tell if such damage had been done or not.

At the fourth scene, as I hardly need to explain, there was no message – there was never any reason to leave one. Moriarty was presenting these cases to Sherlock as unsolvable.

Sherlock would not be able to solve them.

In other words, it had no clear solution – since the killer had committed suicide disguised as the final victim, there was no longer even a perpetrator to catch, and no clues left to catch him with. This was one reason why the difficulty had escalated so dramatically from scene to scene – first pointing to the name, then the address, then the street; zooming out. So when no message was discovered at the fourth scene, Sherlock and I would simply believe that we had missed something. Something that should be there, but wasn't – and it's a lot harder to guess it when that something wasn't there in the first place.

A problem with no solution had one answer only; it could not be solved. But how could that be proved? It conflicted with the fairness shown at the first three scenes, which tied our hands. Unable to find something that wasn't there, and driven on by the taunting murder of a person that we now knew, Sherlock and I would have no choice but to search in vain for 'JM', who no longer existed. The lack of further victims had been specified at the start by the decreasing numbers of dolls, so we couldn't conclude that the killer had passed away when no more killings happened. We would be left floundering in the darkness, searching for something that we thought should be there, but in reality wasn't.

And in the end, the killer had already come clean about his real name and was right there under our noses.

Sherlock would lose.

Moriarty would win.

...Or so he thought.

In reality this didn't happen, and the dizzying amount of time Moriarty had spent preparing for this moment had been wasted. Destroyed. Blown to smithereens, because he had focused all his energies on Sherlock and never once viewed me as anything beyond a mere pawn. All Moriarty's attention was on the shadow behind me; he never even saw John Watson standing right in front of him. Even as he believed himself to be praising John's skills, Moriarty ultimately underestimated him. 'John had done better than expected' – the very expression is arrogant. It implies that you have set a lower expectation than reality. This flaw proved fatal.

The key (hah), if you haven't worked it out already, was the locked rooms. Adam had said over and over that there was no need to think about them; the killer had probably just used a spare key. It suggests that he knew that focusing on that point could mean big trouble for him. Moriarty must have had a pretty good idea where the weaknesses in his own plot lay. But those weaknesses were only temporary, and if he could hold out until the final murder then they would vanish. He would take the secret with him to his grave, if you will. The fact that I figured it out just before the killing was due, mostly, to pure luck.

At the first scene, and the second, and the third, a doll had been nailed directly across from the door, at the height of the latch of the thumb-turn lock – both these things had to be noticed in order to figure it out. At the third murder scene the dolls had been counted among the clock numbers, which seemed like a reasonable idea, but that wasn't their primary function. And their function as a metaphor for the victims was, again, not their true purpose.

Let us look at how the locked rooms were created.

The doors were locked from the outside using a needle and thread. The trick I had thought of almost immediately – running a thread under the door and up to the latch – had been denied by Adam, but it had been a very close call. It was true that the only effect it would have had was to put outwards pressure on a door that only opened inwards.

But, then the dolls come into play.

A doll does not float in front of a wall. It has to have something holding it in place. At the potential fourth scene, I had looked at the opposite wall with my head near the thumb turn latch and imagined a doll looking back at me. A doll that was pinned to the wall. A pin.

I had seen photos of the dolls before. They were attached to the wall with long, thin nails, leaving a deep hole of small radius even when removed. I had seen the holes at each of the scenes.

What mattered to Moriarty was not the doll, but the nail. The dolls were just a distraction from the fact that he had hammered nails into the walls to help him form a locked room. Specifically, the head of the nail acted as a pulley around which the thread could turn. The thread went under the door, across the whole room, around the nail head, over to a side wall, another nail head, and to the thumb turn lock where it wound around the latch. Obviously this is simplified and the actual setup was harder, including using a double length of string so one end could be let go and the whole length recovered, but this is the basic theme. The thread sketched a triangle in the middle of the room.

Pull the string from outside of the room, and it would lock itself from the inside. Click.

Anyone could set this up, as long as they used strong thread that wouldn't break. Try it yourself at home, in your own room. As long as you are allowed to hammer nails into the walls, of course.

Now, consider the fourth scene. The important thing to realise about this trick is that it requires at least two dolls, because you need two nail head pulleys. At least two. One doll? Won't work. At the fourth scene, with only one pulley opposite the door, the latch would not turn. The thread would not make a triangle, and would simply go over and come back in a straight line.

So, as I have already said, at the fourth scene the final victim, Moriarty himself, turned the latch by hand. We know this only because the locked room trick was solved before the last murder took place – otherwise, the fact that a locked room had been created with only one doll would have been dropped into the file as one insignificant piece of data among many, and the weakness in Moriarty's plan would evaporate. As long as the locked rooms remained a mystery until the killings were complete, they would remain one forever.

I was just in time.

Adam had asked himself absently, "what for?" Why had the killer created a locked room when it was hardly needed? A game... for fun... a puzzle. Locked rooms usually existed to make a murder look like a suicide.

In this case, the locked rooms existed to make a suicide look like a murder.

To provide Sherlock with a puzzle even he could not solve. But even if he could not solve it, it did not mean there was no answer; the only solution was that it was unsolvable.

According to Moriarty's plan, I would come running to 44 Southwark Street when Adam failed to answer his phone as scheduled, only to find a doll on the far wall and a body burned to death; if by then I had not figured out the locked room mystery, then everything would go as expected, his plot executed perfectly. Since a locked room had been created with only one doll, nobody would ever think of the triangulation technique.

If the police hadn't taken the dolls and nails that had held them away as evidence, I would maybe have figured it out a little faster. But that wasn't luck – Moriarty had known that the police would investigate the scenes first and by the time I got there, the damning evidence would have been removed. Perhaps not at the third scene, but he had minimised the chances of that with his... bloody... method of going about things. It had forced me to wait while the clean-up was done. In any case, if they did remain, they had been counted with the matryoshka and so their practical purpose would have obscured their true meaning. So, the only thing that didn't go to plan was my investigative ability.

No, not ability. Just a hefty dose of luck.

Inspiration, maybe.

But figuring out the locked room trick and that it would only work at the first three scenes still didn't tip me off. I just started wondering how the killer was going to lock the door at the final scene. Or considering whether my theory was completely and utterly misguided. I didn't suspect Adam immediately. Of course not – I had no real reason to, aside from maybe thinking that he was a bit of a creep. I kept saying he was suspicious, but my suspicions never reached a definite form.

To theorise that the final murder would be a suicide would have led me on to realise that the message pointed to two possible scenes, and if one of those scenes contained me, then the other must contain the killer. However, I'm not much good at that type of thinking – it's more Sherlock's method than mine. I'm a 'stab in the dark' kind of person.

But I had figured it out, nonetheless.

Because Adam Young had known.

He knew that I was carrying a gun.

And, in this case, the only people who could have known that... there were two. One was Sherlock, of course. I had told him on the phone before. But the idea of Adam Young as the mysterious voice on my phone was so far out, so utterly lucridous and comically absurd, that I dismissed it within seconds of considering the option.

The other person was the person who had assaulted me back in the alleyway, who I had made a move to draw a gun on. I had already theorised that that person might have been the murderer... which led me to the truth.

Failure.

Adam Young's mistake, Moriarty's one and only failure that brought his whole plan crashing down around him. The only failure that the killer who never made mistakes had made. If he had simply rated me a little higher on the worthy scale, then surely he would never have let that slip.

So, I guess it was his arrogance that brought him down in the end. Pretty neat moral of the story, I suppose.

It is an eternal mystery to me how much of the truth Sherlock grasped and when. He might have figured it out from the get-go with one of those inspiration-moments of his, and put me into action based on that just to see how things turned out. Or, he might never have known and been saved by me. Either way is possible – he refuses to even speak Moriarty's name to me, let alone discuss this particular case. I think that something about it struck a nerve within him. But as long as one thing is clear, little else matters.

Jim Moriarty lost to John Watson.

In other words, he didn't even lose to Sherlock, which I think is probably the most humiliating end possible for him at this point. Losing the battle so miserably, unable to even die the way he had planned, Moriarty was taken to the police hospital and the serial killings that had begun a month before were officially ended. Apparently, from the assessment of his injuries, it turned out that he had poured petrol on himself at almost the exact same moment that I had realised the truth. It would have surprised nobody had he died of his wounds or even of smoke inhalation, but he did not die.

The hardest part of killing somebody? Actually killing them. Moriarty was not only defeated, but he survived to live with his shame. I feel no compassion for him, only pity. There are people who evil can save, I suppose; it is not my place to feel anger at his actions. That is reserved for the families of his victims.

To them, if they are reading this, I wish to offer my condolences. I've changed their names for this blog, although I obviously kept their initials the same.

He escaped, of course; any of you familiar with my other blog entries will know all about his revenge attempts on Sherlock in general and me specifically. He's probably reading this, aren't you, Moriarty? I'm speaking to you now – just because you didn't manage to kill yourself with fire does not mean that it cannot kill. And even if you suffered the most horrific pain imaginable, that is no reason to go around inflicting it on others.

(For those not in the know, it involves Semtex vests and you can read my account of it here on this blog.)

And with that, I guess the story is over. That was the London JM Homicides, the most comprehensive explanation you will get, from a man who was in the thick of it all. I've written other stories, and this one serves as the starting point for them all.

Although, I've just realised that I never answered the question you all begged me to answer.


	10. A Walk in the Park (Epilogue)

To close off this story, I will leave you with a tale of what happened a few days later. On the first of October I was enjoying a walk through a park near my house, my head still buzzing with memories of the flames. The tremor in my hands had returned full force, and I recognised the signs of resurgent stress that my therapist had warned me to watch out for.

I was due that afternoon for an employment interview. As a doctor, I could easily find work, and I was slowly but surely easing back into the daily routine of civilian life. I also needed to find myself a flat, as I knew it would be unethical to use my sister's place when she already had enough problems on her plate (her alcoholism was not without cause).

I had spoken to Sherlock once after Moriarty was arrested. He had thanked me for my help with the case, and told me one thing I had not known before – the threat made directly against him to a high-ranking government official (I later learned; Mycroft Holmes) that was the true reason he had been prevented from investigating himself.

Once again, he hung up without even saying goodbye. Soon after that, the number mysteriously deleted itself from my contacts list. I hadn't written it down elsewhere, so any contact with him was lost, presumably forever.

That day in the park, I sat down on a bench and thought about why Moriarty had done the whole thing. When it all boiled down, the case had been nothing more than a challenge to Sherlock, and he had murdered others and tried murdering himself just to attain that goal. While murders can be dismissed as madness, suicide cannot. If only somebody had stopped him before he had become so intent on his scheme...

It just showed how much Moriarty was prepared to sacrifice to get his goal. His own life was as meaningless as the lives of his victims, nothing but a tool in his intentful quest to surpass Sherlock. Perhaps it was less intent than desperation. Perhaps nobody could have stopped him.

Such was his resolve.

Which made him... strong. Far stronger than me; stronger, I believe, even than Sherlock Holmes. Although that is debatable, and I may have to remove this part before either of them see it.

* * *

"Hmm?"

John Watson looked up from his seat on the park bench to see someone approaching him. Actually approaching him; that purposeful stride angled straight towards the bench gave little doubt that the man was aiming for John and not just taking a walk himself.

He sat down on the bench less than a metre away, and John briefly considered moving. Right now, all he wanted was to be alone with his thoughts.

Then the man spoke up.

"You're shorter than I thought you were."

John's mind blanked. Was he... supposed to know this man?

"Uuhh... er... yes, people do say that sometimes. You're... tall." It was meant to be a returned compliment, but it fell kind of flat. All the while, John searched through his memory, grasping at the edges of his mind to try to remember who this guy was.

He was tall; even sitting down his eye level was significantly above John's. He wore an outer coat not too dissimilar to John's own, although the collar was turned up and he had wrapped around it a scarf, as if the weather was cold. Certainly, it was October, so such a thing was not unheard of.

The face was not recognisable, and neither was the voice. Even so, John suddenly got the strangest sense of déjà vu.

"I wanted to thank you. I know for sure that this park contains no surveillance devices, and we are otherwise alone, so I feel comfortable calling you... a friend. Do not tell anyone else that I said that."

"I won't." What else was he supposed to say? Was this an army comrade fresh back from Afghanistan?

"Also, I have reliable intelligence that you are looking for a person to flat-share with. That is a happy coincidence; due to circumstances involving my brother, I am forced to find a flatmate. He believes it will ensure my security. I wanted to offer you the position."

John could stand it no longer.

"I'm sorry, but who are you? It's not an insult; I just can't recognise you."

At this the man got a very intent expression on his face and stared at John right in the eyes for two or three seconds. John broke off the stare, looking to the side.

"That is odd. Hmm, to not even have deduced it even when I purposefully left evidence for you? What must it be like in your little brain? I'm amazed you managed to solve those murders."

John's eyes went wide and he whooshed around to face the other man, still uncomprehending.

"How did you know about-" the words choked up in his throat, his body refusing to let him talk. "Who are you anyway?"

The man gave a secretive little smirk and stood up from the bench.

"The address is 221b Baker Street. Come and see me there if you are interested in sharing a flat. You still haven't realised who I am?" He shook his head, smiling slightly. "Sherlock Holmes. It was nice to meet you in person at last, John Watson."

With that, Sherlock strode off as he always did, leaving me sitting dumbfounded on the bench. It was the beginning of our friendship together.

* * *

And that, readers, is how I first met Sherlock Holmes face-to-face, and I never even knew his name.

_**En****d o****f**** Entry**_


End file.
